(/utA^ CHRISTIAN BIOGEAPHY, THE LIFE OE SIR MAnHEW HALE, KXIGHT. THE LIFE OF REV. JOSEPH ALLEI>'E. THE LIFE OF NATHANAEL HEYWOOD. EDITED BY THOMAS JACKSON. JTctD-Tlork: PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS, 200 MCLBEEnr-STREET. 1S53. 5R SANTA BAPwBAKA \loo ;r3 THE LIFE SIR MATTHEW HALE, KNT LATE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OK ENGLAND BY GILBERT BURNET, D. D BISHOP OF SARUM. THE LIFE SIR MATTHEW HALE, KNIGHT. CHAPTER I. Matthew Hale was bom at Alderley in Gloucestershire, November 1st, 1609. His grandfather was Robert Hale, an eminent clo- thier in Wotton-under-Edge, in that county, where he and his ancestors had lived for many descents ; and they had given several parcels of land for the use of the poor, which are en- joyed by them to this day. This Robert ac- quired an estate of ten thousand pounds, which he divided almost equally among his five sons, besides the portions he gave his daughters, from whom a numerous posterity has sprung. His second son was Robert Hale, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn : he married Joan, the daughter of Matthew Poyntz, of Alderley, Esquire, who was descended from that noble family of the Poyntz's of Acton. Of this marriage there was no other issue but this one son. His grandfa- ther by his mother was his godfather, and gave him his own name at his baptism. His father was a man of that strictness of conscience, that he gave over the practice of the law, because 6 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. he could not understand the reason of giving colour in pleadings, which as he thought was to tell a lie ; and that, with some other things commonly practised, seemed to him contrary to that exactness of truth and justice which became a Christian ; so that he withdrew himself from the inns of court, to live on his estate in the country. Of this I was informed by an ancient gentleman that lived in a friendship with his son for fifty years ; and he heard Judge Jones, who was Mr. Hale's contemporary, declare this in the King's Bench. But as the care he had to save his soul made him abandon a profession in which he might have raised his family much higher, so his charity to his poor neighbours made him not only deal his alms largely among them while he lived, but at his death he left (out of his small estate, which was one hundred pounds a year) twenty pounds a year to the poor of Wotton, which his son confirmed to them with some addition, and with this regula- tion, that it should be distributed among such poor housekeepers as did not receive the alms of the parish ; for to give it to those was only, as he used to say, to save so much money to the rich, who by law were bound to relie^'e the poor of the parish. Thus he was descended rather from a good than a noble family ; and yet what was wanting in the insignificant titles of high birth and noble blood was more than made up in the true worth of his ancestors. But he was soon deprived of the happiness of his father's care and instruo LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 7 tion ; for as be lost his mother before he was three years old, so bis father died before he was five ; so early was he cast on the providence of God. But that iinhappiness w^as, in a great measure, made up to him ; for after some oppo- sition made by Mr. Thomas Poyntz, his uncle by bis mother, he was committed to the care of Anthony Kingscot, of Kingscot, Esquire, who was his next kinsman, after his uncles, by his mother. Great care was taken of his education, and his guardian intended to breed him to be a di- vine ; and, being inclined to the way of those then called Puritans, put him to some schools that were taught by those of that party, and in the seventeenth year of his age sent him to Magdalen Hall, in Oxford, where Obadiah Sedg- wick was his tutor. He was an extraordinary proficient at school, and for some time at Ox- ford ; but the stage players coming thither, he was so much corrupted by seeing many plays, that he almost wholly forsook his studies. By this he not only lost much time, but found that his head came to be thereby filled with such vain images of things, that they were at best unprofitable, if not hurtful to him ; and being afterward sensible of the mischief of this, he resolved, upon his coming to London, (where he knew the opportunities of such sights would be more frequent and inviting,) never to see a play again ; to which he constantly adhered. The corruption of a young man's mind in one particular generally draws on a great many 8 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. more after it ; so he, being now taken off from following his studies, and from the gravity of his deportment, that was formerly eminent in him far beyond his years, set himself to many of the vanities incident to youth, but still pre- served his purity, and a great probity of mind. He loved fine clothes, and delighted much in company ; and, being of a strong robust body, he was a great master at all those exercises that required much strength. He also learned to fence and handle his weapons ; in which he became so expert, that he worsted many of the masters of those arts : but as he was exercising of himself in them, an instance appeared, that showed a good judgment, and gave some hopes of better things. One of his masters told him he could teach him no more, for he was now better at his own trade than himself was. This JNIr. Hale looked on as flattery : so, to make the master discover himself, he promised him the house he lived in, for he was his tenant, if he could hit him a blow on the head ; and bade him do his best, for he would be as good as his word. So, after a little engagement, his mas- ter being really superior to him, hit him on the head, and he performed his promise ; for he gave him the house freely, and was not unwill- ing at that rate to learn so early to distinguish flatter}' from plain and simple truth. He nov/ was so taken up with martial mat- ters, that, instead of going on in his design of being a scholar, or a divine, he resolved to be a soldier ; and his tutor Sedgwick going into the LIFE or SIR MATTHEW HALE. 9 Low Countries, chaplain to the renowned Lord Vere, he resolved to go along with him, and to trail a pike in the Prince of Orange's army. But a happy stop was put to this resolution, which might have proved so fatal to himself, and have deprived the age of the great example he gave, and the useful services he afterward did his countr)-. He was engaged in a suit of law with Sir William Whitmore, who laid claim to some part of his estate ; and his guardian be- ing a man of a retired temper, and not made for business, he was forced to leave the university, after he had been three years in it, and go to London to solicit his own business. Being re- commended to Sergeant Glanvil for his coun- sellor, and he observing in him a clear appre- hension of things, and a solid judgment, and a great fitness for the study of the law, took pains upon him to persuade him to forsake his thoughts of being a soldier, and to apply himself to the study of the law ; and this had so good an effect on him, that on November 8th, 1629, when he was past the twentieth year of his age, he was admitted into Lincoln's Inn ; and being then deeply sensible how much time he had lost, and that idle and vain things had overrun and almost corrupted his mind, he resolved to re- deem the time he had lost, and followed his studies with a diligence that could scarce be believed, if the signal effects of it did not gain it credit. He studied for many years at the rate of sixteen hours a day : he threw aside all fine clothes, and betook himself to a plain 10 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE, fashion, which he continued to use in many points to his dying day. But since the honour of reclaiming him from the idleness of his former course of life is due to the memory of that eminent lawyer, Sergeant Glanvil, and since my design in writing is to propose a pattern of heroic virtue to the world, I shall mention one passage of the sergeant, 'which ought ncA-er to be forgotten. His father had a fair estate, which he intended to settle on his elder brother ; but he being a vicious young man, and there appearing no hopes of his recovery, he settled it on him who was his second son. Upon his death, his eldest son, finding that what he had before looked on as the threatenings of an angry father was now but too certain, became melancholy ; and that by degrees wrought so great a change on him, that what his father could not prevail in while he lived was now effected by the severity of his last will ; so that it was now too late for him to change in hopes of any estate that was gone from him. But his brother, observing the reality of the change, resolved within himself what to do : so he called him with many of his friends together to a feast ; and, after other dishes had been served up to the dinner, he ordered one that was covered to be set before his brother, and desired him to uncover it, which he doing, the company were surprised to find it full of writings. So he told them, that he was now to do what he was sure his father would have done, if he had lived to see that LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 11 happy change which they now all saw in his brother ; and, therefore, he freely restored to him the whole estate. This is so great an in- stance of a generous and just disposition, that I hope the reader will easily pardon this digres- sion ; and that the rather, since that worthy sergeant was so instrumental in the happy change that followed in the course of Mr. Hale's life. Yet he did not at tirst break off from keeping too much company with some vain people, till a sad accident drove him from it ; for he, with some other young students, being invited to be merry out of town, one of the company called for so much wine, that, notwithstanding all that Mr. Hale could do to prevent it, he went on in his excess till he fell down as dead before ihem ; so that all that were present were not a little affrighted at it, who did w^hat they could te bring him to himself again. This did particu- larly affect Mr. Hale, who thereupon went into another room, and, shutting the door, fell on his knees, and prayed earnestly to God, both for his friend that he might be restored to life again, and that himself might be forgiven for giving such countenance to so much excess ; and he vowed to God, that he would never again keep company in that manner, nor drink a health while he lived. His friend recovered, and he most religiously observed his vow till his dying day. And though he was afterward pressed to drink healths, particularly the king's, which was set up by too many as a distinguishing mark of 12 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. loyalty, and drew many into great excess, after his majesty's happy restoration ; but he would never dispense with his vow, though he was sometimes roughly treated for this, which some hot and indiscreet men called obstinacy. This wrought an entire change on him : now he forsook all vain company, and divided him- self between the duties of religion and the stu- dies of his profession. In the former he was so regular, that for six and thirty year's time he never once failed going to church on the Lord's day. This observation he made when an ague first interrupted that constant course ; and he reflected on it, as an acknowledgment of God's great goodness to him, in so long a continuance of his health. He took a strict account of his time, of which the reader will best judge by the scheme he drew for a diary, which I shall insert, copied from the original ; but I am not certain when he made it ; it is set down in the same simplicity in which he wrote it for his own private use. MORNING. 1. To lift up the heart to God in thankfulness for renewing my life. 2. To renew my covenant with God in Christ, (1.) By renewed acts of faith receiving Christ, and rejoicing in the height of that relation. (2.) Resolution of being one of his people, do- ing him allegiance. 3. Adoration and prayer. 4. Setting a watch over my own infirmities LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 13 and passions, over the snares laid in our way. Pcrimus Ileitis. Day Employment. There must be an employment, two kinds: — 1. Our ordinary calling, to serve God in it. It is a service to Christ, though never so mean. (Colossians iii.) Here faithfulness, diligence, cheerfulness. Not to over-lay myself with more business than I can bear. 2. Our spiritual employments ; mingle some- what of God's immediate service in this day. Refreshments. 1. Meat and drink, moderation seasoned with somewhat of God. 2. Recreations. (1.) Not our business. (2.) Suitable. No games, if given to covetousness or passion. If alone. 1. Beware of wandering, vain, lustful thoughts ; fly from thyself rather than entertain these. 2. Let thy solitary thoughts be profitable ; view the evidences of thy salvation, the state of thy soul, the coming of Christ, thy own mor- tality ; it will make thee humble and watchful. Company. Do good to them. Use God's name reverent- ly. Beware of leaving an ill impression of ill 14 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. example. Receive good from them if more knowing. EVENING. Cast up the accounts of the day. If aught amiss, beg pardon. Gather resolution of more vigilance. If well, bless the mercy and grace of God that hath supported thee. These notes have an imperfection in the v.'ording of them, which shows they were only intended for his privacies. No wonder a man who set such rules to himself became quickly very eminent and remarkable. Noy, the attorney-general, being then one of the greatest men of the profession, took early notice of him, and called often for him, and di- rected him in his study, and grew to have such friendship for him that he came to be called young Noy. He passing from the extreme of vanity in his apparel, to that of neglecting him- self too much, Avas once taken, when there was a press for the king's service, as a fit person for it ; for he was a strong and well-built man ; but some that knew him coming by, and giving no- tice who he was, the press-men let him go. This made him return to more decency in his clothes, but never to any superfluity or vanity in them. Once as he was buying some cloth for a new suit, the draper, with whom he differed about the price, told him he should have it for nothing, if he would promise him one hundred pounds LIFK OF SIR .MATTHEW HALE. 15 when he came to be lord chief justice of Eng- land ; to which he answered, that he could not with a good conscience wear any man's cloth, unless lie paid for it ; so he satislied the draper, and carried away the cloth. Yet the same draper lived to see him advanced to that same dignity. While he was thus improving himself in the study of the law, he not only kept the hours of the hall constantly in term time, but seldom put himself out of commons in vacation time ; and continued then to follow his studies with an un- v.-earied diligence ; and not being satislied with the books writ about it, or to take things upon trust, was very diligent in searching all records. Then did he make divers collections out of the books he had read, and, mixing them with his own observations, digested them into a common- place book ; which he did with so much indus- try and judgment, that an eminent judge of the King's Bench borrowed it of him, when he was lord chief baron. He unwillingly lent it, be- cause it had been writ by him before he was called to the bar, and had never been thorough- ly revised by him since that time ; only what alterations had been made in the law by sub- sequent statutes and judgments, were added by him as they had happened. But the judge having perused it, said, that though it was com- posed by him so early, he did not think any lawyer in P^ngland could do it better, except he himself would again set about it. He was soon found out by that great and 16 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. learned antiquary, Mr. Selden, who, though much superior to him in years, yet came to have such a liking of him and of Mr. Vaughan, who was afterward lord chief justice of the common pleas, that as he continued in a close friendship with them while he lived, so he left them at his death two of his four executors. It was this acquaintance that first set Mr. Hale on a more enlarged pursuit of learning, which he had before confined to his own pro- fession ; but becoming as great a master in it as ever any was very soon, he, who could never let any of his time go away unprofitably, found leisure to attain to as great a variety of know- ledge, in as comprehensive a manner as most men have done in any age. He set himself much to the study of the Ro- man law ; and though he liked the way of judi- cature in England, by juries, much better than that of the civil law, where so much was trusted to the judge ; yet he often said that the true grounds and reasons of law were so well de- livered in the digests, that a man could never understand law as a science so well as by seek- ing it there ; and therefore lamented much that it was so little studied in England. He looked on readiness in arithmetic as a thing which might be useful to him in his own employment ; and acquired it to such a degree that he would often on a sudden, and afterward on the bench, resolve very hard questions, which had puzzled the best accountants about town. He rested not here ; but studied the LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 17 algebra, both speciosa and numcrosa, and went through all the other mathematical sciences ; and made a great collection of very excellent instruments, sparing no cost to have them as exact as art could make them. He was also very conversant in philosophical learning, and in all the curious experiments and rare discove- ries of this age : and had the new books writ- ten on those subjects sent him from all parts, which he both read and examined so critically, that if the principles and hypotheses which he took first up did any way prepossess him, yet those who have differed most from him ac- knowledged, that in what he has written con- cerning the Torricellian experiment, and of the rarefaction and condensation of the air, he shows as great an exactness, and as much subtlety in the reasoning he builds on them, as these prin- ciples, to which he adhered, could bear. But indeed it will seem scarcely credible, that a man so much employed, and of so severe a temper of mind, could find leisure to read, ob- serve, and write so much of these subjects as he did. He called them his diversions ; for he often said, when he was weary with the study of the law or divinity, he used to recreate himself with philosophy or the mathematics : to these ho added great skill in physic, anatomy, and chirurgcry ; and he used to say, no man could be absolutely a master in any profession, with- but having some skill in other sciences ; for besides the satisfaction he had in the knowledge of these things, he made use of them often in 2 18 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. his employments. In some examinations he would put such questions to physicians or chi- rurgeons, that they have professed the college of physicians could not do it more exactly ; by which he discovered great judgment, as well as much knowledge in these things. And in his sickness he used to argue with the doctors about his distempers, and the methods they took with them, like one of their own profession; which one of them told me he understood as far as speculation without practice could carry him. To this he added great searches into ancient history ; and particularly into the roughest and least delightful part of it, chronology. He was well acquainted with the ancient Greek philo- sophers ; but want of occasion to use it wore out his knowledge of the Greek tongue : and though he never studied the Hebrew tongue, yet, by his great conversation with Selden, he understood the most curious things in the rab- binical learning. But above all these, he seemed to have made the study of divinity the chief of all others ; to •which he not only directed every thing else, but also arrived at that pitch in it, that those who have read what he has written on these subjects will think they must have had most of his time and thoughts. It may seem extravagant, and almost incredible, that one man, in no great compass of years, should have acquired such a variety of knowledge, and that in sciences that require much leisure and application. But as his parts were quick, and his apprehension LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 19 lively ; his memory great, and his judgment strong ; so his industry was almost indefatiga- ble. He rose always betimes in the morning ; was never idle ; scarcely ever held any dis- course about news, except with some few, in whom he confided entirely. He entered into no correspondence by letters, except about ne- cessary business, or matters of learning ; and spent very little time in eating or drinking ; for as he never went to public feasts, so he gave no entertainments but to the poor ; for he fol- lowed our Saviour's direction (of feasting none but these) literally : and in eating and drinking he observed not only great plainness and mo- deration, but lived so philosophically, that he always ended his meal with an appetite ; so that he lost little time at it, (that being the only portion which he grudged himself,) and was disposed to any exercise of his mind, to which he thought fit to apply himself, immediately after he had dined. By these means he gained much time, that is otherwise unprofitably wasted. He had also an admirable equality in the temper of his mind, which disposed him for whatever studies he thought fit to turn himself to ; and some very uneasy things which he lay under for many years did rather engage him to, than distract him from, his studies. 20 LIFE Of SIR MATTHEW HALE. CHAPTER II. When he was called to the bar and began to make a figure in the world, the late unhappy wars broke out ; in which it was no easy thing for a man to preserve his integrity, and to live securely, free from great danger and trouble. He had read the life of Pomponius Atticus, M'ritten by Nepos ; and having observed that he had passed through a time of as much dis- traction as ever was in any age or state, from the wars of Marius and Sylla, to the beginning of Augustus's reign, without the least blemish on his reputation, and free from any considerable danger, being held in great esteem by all par- ties, and courted and favoured by them ; he -set him as a pattern to himself: and observing, that besides those virtues which are necessary to all men, and at all times, there were two things that chiefly preserved Atticus ; the one was his engaging in no faction, and meddling in no public business ; the other was his constant favouring and relieving those that were lowest ; which was ascribed, by such as prevailed, to the generosity of his temper, and procured him much kindness from those on whom he had ex- ercised his bounty, when it came to their turn to govern ; he resolved to guide himself by those rules as much as it was possible for him to do. He not only avoided all public employment, but the very talking of news ; and was always LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 21 both favourable and charitable to those who were depressed, and was sure never to provoke any in particular, by censuring or reflecting on their actions : for many that have conversed much with him, have told me they never heard him once speak ill of any person. He was employed in his practice by all the king's party : he was assigned counsel to the Earl of Strafford, and Archbishop Laud, and afterward to the blessed king himself, when brought to the infamous pageantry of a mock trial ; and offered to plead for him with all the courage that so glorious a cause ou^ht to have inspired him with ; but was not suffered to ap- pear, because the king refusing, as he had good reason, to submit to the court, it was pretended none could be admitted to speak for him. He was also counsel for the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and the Lord Capcl. His plea for the former of these I have published in the memoirs of that duke's life. Afterward also being counsel for the Lord Craven, he pleaded with that force of argument, that the then attorney- general threatened him for appear- ing against government : to whom he answered, he was pleading in defence of those laws which they declared they would maintain and preserve ; and he was doing his duty to his client ; so that he was not to be daunted with threatenings. Upon all these occasions he had discharged himself with so much learning, tidelity, and courage, that he came to be generally employed for all that party : nor was he satistied to ap- 22 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. pear for their just defence in the way of his profession, but he also relieved them often in their necessities ; which he did in a way that was no less prudent than charitable, consider- ing the dangers of that time: for he did often deposit considerable sums in the hands of a worthy gentleman of the king's party, who knew their necessities well, and was to distri- bute his charity according to his own discretion, without either letting them know from whence it came, or giving himself any account to whom he had given it. Cromwell seeing him possessed of so much practice, and he being one of the most eminent men of the law, who was not at all afraid of doing his duty in those critical times, resolved to take him off from it, and raise him to the bench. Mr. Hale saw well enough the snare laid for him : and though he did not much consider the prejudice it would be to himself to exchange the easy and safer profits he had by his practice, for a judge's place in the common pleas, which he was required to accept of; yet he did delibe- rate more on the lawfulness of taking a com- mission from usurpers : but having considered well of this, he came to be of opinion, that it being absolutely necessary to have justice and property kept up at all times, it was no sin to take a commission from usurpers, if he made no declaration of his acknowledging their au- thority ; which he never did. He was much urged to accept of it by some eminent men of LIFE OF SIR UATTHKW HALE. 23 his own profession, who were of the king's party ; as Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and Sir Geoffery Palmer ; and was also satisfied con- cerning the lawfulness of it, by the resolution of some famous divines, in particular Dr. Shel- don and Dr. Henchman, who were afterward promoted to the sees of Canterbury and London. To these were added the importunities of all his friends ; who thought that in a time of so much danger and oppression, it might be no small security to the nation to have a man of his integrity and abilities on the bench : and the usurpers themselves held him in that esti- mation, that they were glad to have him give a countenance to their courts ; and by promoting one that was known to have difl'erent principles from them, aftected the reputation of honouring and trusting men of eminent virtues, of what persuasion soever they might be in relation to public matters. But he had greater scruples concerning the proceeding against felons, and putting offenders to death by that commission ; since he thought, the sNvt)rd of justice belonging only by right to the lawful prince, it seemed not warrantable to proceed to a capital sentence by an authority derived from usurpers. Yet at first he made distinction between common and ordinary felon- ies, and off«;nct\s aa;iinst the state : for the last, he would never meddle in tliem ; for he thought these might i)e often leaal and warrantable ac- tions, and that the putting men to death on that 24 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. account was murder. But for the ordinary- felonies, he at first was of opinion that it was as necessary, even in times of usurpation, to execute justice in those cases, as in matters of property. But after the king was murdered, he laid by all his collections of the pleas of the crown ; and that they might not fall into ill hands, he hid them behind the wainscoting of his study ; for he said, there was no more occa- sion to use them, till the king should be again restored to his right ; and so, upon his majesty's restoration, he took them out, and went on in his design to perfect that great work. Yet, for some time after he was made a judge, when he went the circuit, he did sit on the crown side, and judged criminals : but, having consi- dered farther of it, he came to think, that it was at least better not to do it ; and so, after the second or third circuit, he refused to sit any more on the crown side, and told plainly the reason ; for in matters of blood he was always to choose the safer side: and indeed he had so carried himself in some trials, that they were not unwillinghe should withdraw from meddling farther in them ; of which I shall give some in- stances. Not long after he was made a judge, which was in the year 1653, when he went the circuit, a trial was brought before him at Lincoln, con- cerning the murder of one of the townsmen, who had been of the king's party, and was killed by a soldier of the garrison there. He was in the fields with a fowling-piece on his shoulder ; LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 25 which the soldier seeing, he came to him, and said, it was contrary to an order which the pro- tector had made, that none who had been of the king's party shoukl carry arms : and so he would have forced it from him : but as the other did not regard the order, so being stronger than the soldier he threw him down, and having beat him, he left him. The soldier went into the town, and told one of his fellow-soldiers how he had been used, and got him to go with him, and lie in wait for the man that he might be avenged on him. They both watched his coming to town, and one of them went to him to demand his gun ; which he refusing, the soldier struck at him ; and as they were struggling, the other came behind, and ran his sword into his body, of which he presently died. It was in the time of the assizes, so they were both tried. Against the one there was no evidence of forethought felony, so he was only found guilty of man- slaughter, and burned on the hand ; but the other was found guilty of murder. And though Colonel Whaley, that commanded the garrison, camo into the court, and urged that the man was killed only for disobeying the protector's order, and that the soldier was but doing his duty, yet the judge regarded both his reason and ihreatenings very little ; and therefore he not only gave sentt?nce against him, but order- ed the execution to be so suddenly done that it might not be possible to procure a reprieve ; which he believed would have been obtained, if there had been time enough granted for it. 26 LIFE OF SIR .MATTHEW HALE. xA.nother occasion was given him of showing both his justice and coinage, when he was in another circuit. He understood that the pro- tector had ordered a jury to be returned for trial, in which he was more than ordinarily concern- ed. Upon this information, he examined the sheriff about it, who knew nothing of it ; for he said he referred all such things to the under- sheriff: and having next asked the under-sheriff concerning it, he found the jury had been re- turned by order from Cromwell : upon which he showed the statute, that all juries ought to be returned by the sherifi', or his lawful officer ; and this not being done according to law, he dismissed the jury, and would not try the cause ; upon which the protector was highly displeased with him, and at his return from his circuit, he told him in anger, he was not fit to be a judge : to which all the answer he made was, that it was very true. Another thing met him in the circuit, upon which he resolved to proceed severely. Some Anabaptists had rushed into a church, and had disturbed a congregation while they were re- ceiving the Lord's supper, not without some violence. At this he was highly oflended ; for he said, It was intolerable for men, who pre- tended so highly to liberty of conscience, to go and disturb others ; especially those who had the encouragement of the law on their side. But these were so supported by some great magis- trates and officers, that a stop was put to his proceedings ; upon which he declared, he would LIFE OF SIU MATTHEW HALE. 27 meddle no more with the triuls on the crown side. When Penriiddock's trial was brou)^ht on, there was a special messenger sent to him, re- quiring him to assist at it. It was in vacation time, and he was at his country house at Alder- ley. He plainly refused to go, and said, the four terms and two circuits were enough, and the little interval that was between was little enough for their private aff\iirs ; and so he excused him- self. He thought it was not necessary to speak, more clearly ; but if he had been urged to it, he would not have been afraid of doing it. He was at that lime chosen a parliament man, (for there being then no house of lords, judges might have been chosen to sit in the house of commons,) and he went to it, on design to ob- struct the mad and wicked projects then on foot by two parties, that had very diflerent prin- ciples and ends. On the one hand, some that were perhaps more sincere, yet were really brainsick, de- signed they knew not what, being resolved to pull down a standing ministry, the law and pro- })erty of England, and all the ancient rules of this government, and set up on its room an in- digested enthusiastical scheme, which they called " the kingdom of Christ," or of his saints ; many of them being really in expectation, that one day or another Christ would come down and sit among them ; and at least they thoujrht to begin the glorious thousand years mentioned in the Revelation. 28 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. Others at the same time taking advantages from the fears and apprehensions that all the sober men of the nation were in, lest they should fall under the t\Tanny of a distracted sort of people, who, to all their other ill principles added great cruelty, which they had copied from those at Munster in the former age, in- tended to improve that opportunity to raise their own fortunes and families. x\midst these Judge Hale steered a middle course ; for as he would engage for neither side, so he, with a great many more worthy men, came to parliaments more out of a design to hinder mischief, than to do much good ; wisely foreseeing, that the inclinations for the royal family were daily growing so much, that in time the disorders then in agitation would ferment to that happy resolution in which they determined in May, 1660. And therefore all that could be then done was to oppose the ill designs of both par- ties, the enthusiasts as well as usurpers. Among the other e.xtravagant motions made in this par- hament, one was to destroy all the records in the Tower, and to settle the nation on a new foundation : so he took this province to himself, to show the madness of this proposition, the in- justice of it, and the mischiefs that would fol- low on it ; and did it with such clearness and strength of reason, as not only satisfied all sober persons, (for it may be supposed that was soon done.) but stopped even the mouth of the fran- tic people themselves. Thus he continued administering justice till LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 29 the protector died ; but then he both refused the mournings that were sent to him and his servants for the funeral, and likewise to accept of the new commission that was offered him by Richard ; and when the rest of the judges urged it upon him, and employed others to press him to accept of it, he rejected all their importuni- ties, and said he could act no longer under such authority. He lived a private man till the parliament met that called home the king, to which he was re- turned knight of the shire from the county of Gloucester. It appeared at that time how much he was beloved and esteemed in his neighbour- hood ; for though another who stood in compe- tition with him had spent near a thousand pounds to procure voices, a great sum to be employed that way in those days, and he had been at no cost ; and was so far from so- liciting it, that he had stood out long against those who pressed him to appear ; and he did not promise to appear till three days before the election, yet he was preferred. He was brought thither almost by violence, by the lord (now earl of) Berkely, who bore all the charge of the entertainments on the day of his election, which was considerable, and had engaged all his friends and interest for him. And whereas by the writ, the knight of a shire must be miles gladio cinctus, and he had no sword, that noble lord girt him with his own sword during the election : but he was soon weary of it ; for the embroidery of the belt did not suit well with 30 LIFK OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. the plainness of his clothes : and indeed the election did not hold long ; for as soon as ever he came into the field, he was chosen by much the greater number, though the poll continued for three or four days. In that parliament he bore his share in the happy period tlien put to the confusions that threatened the utter ruin of the nation ; which, contrary to the expectation* of the most san- guine, settled in so serene and quiet a manner, that those who had formerly built so much on their success, calling it an answer from heaven to their solemn appeals to the providence of God, were now not a little confounded to see all this turned against themselves, in an instance much more extraordinary than any of those were, upon which they had built so much. His great prudence and excellent temper led him to think, that the sooner an act of indemnity were passed, and the fuller it were of graces and favours, it would sooner settle the nation, and quiet the minds of the people ; and therefore he applied himself with a particular care to the framing and carrying it on ; in which it was visible he had no concern of his own, but merely his love of the public that set him on it. Soon after this, when the courts in Westmin- ster Hall came to be settled, he was made lord chief baron ; and when the earl of Clarendon (then lord chancellor) delivered him his com- mission, in the speech he made, according to the custom on such occasions, he expressed his esteem of him in a very singular manner ; tell- LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 31 ing him, among other things, that if the king coukl have found out an honester and fitter man for that employment, he would not have ad- vanced him to it ; and that he had therefore preferred him, because he knew none that de served it so well. It is ordinary for persons so promoted to be knighted ; but he desired to avoid having that honour done him, and there- fore for a considerable time declined all oppor- tunities of waiting on the king ; which the lord chancellor observing, sent for him upon busi- ness one day, when the king was at his house, and told his majesty, there was his modest chief baron, upon wliich he was unexpectedly knighted. He continued eleven years in that place, managing the court and all proceedings in it, with singular justice. It was observed by the whole nation how much he raised the repu- tation and practice of it ; and those who held places and offices in it can all declare, not only the impartiality of his justice, for that is but a common virtue, but his generosity, his vast diligence, and his great exactness in trials. Tiiis gave occasion to the only complaint that ever was made of him, that he did not despatch matters quick enough. But the great care he used to put suits to a final end, as it made him slower in deciding them, so it had this good efiect, — that causes tried before him were sel- dom, if ever, tried again. Nor did his administration of justice lie only in that court : he was one of the principal judges 32 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. that sat in Clifford's Inn, about settling the dif- ference between landlord and tenant, after the dreadful fire of London ; he being the first that offered his service to the city, for accommodating all the differences that might have arisen about the rebuilding of it ; in which he behaved himself to the satisfaction of all persons concerned : so that the sudden and quiet building of the city, which is justly to be reckoned one of the won- ders of the age, is in no small measure due to the great care which he and Sir Orlando Bridgeman (then lord chief justice of the common pleas, afterward lord keeper of the great seal of Eng- land) used, and to the judgment they showed in that affair ; since, without the rules then laid down, there might have otherwise followed such an endless train of vexatious suits, as might have been little less chargeable than the fire itself had been. But without detracting from the labours of the other judges, it must be acknowledged, that he w^as the most instrumental in that great work ; for he first, by way of scheme, contrived the rules upon which he and the rest proceeded afterward ; in which his readiness at arithmetic, and his skill in architecture, were of great use to him. But it will not seem strange that a judge be- haved himself as he did, who at the entry into his employment set such excellent rules to himself, which will appear in the following paper, copied from the original under his own hand : — LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 33 Things necessary to be continiialhj had in rcmeinbrancc. 1. That in the administration of justice, I am intrusted for God, the king, and country ; and therefore, 2. That it be done, (1.) Uprightly, (2.) De- liberately, (3.) Resolutely. 3. That I rest not upon my own understand- ing or strength ; but implore and rest upon the direction and strength of God. 4. That in the execution of justice I care- fully lay aside my own passions, and not give way to them, however provoked. 5. That I be wholly intent upon the business I am about, remitting all other cares and thoughts as unseasonable, and interruptions. 6. That I suffer not myself to be prepossess- ed with any judgment at all, till the whole business and both parties be heard. 7. That I never engage myself in the begin- ning of any cause, but reserve myself unpreju- dii-ed till the whole be heard. 8. That in business capital, though my na- ture prompt me to pity, yet to consider, that there is also a pity due tc *he country. 9. That I be not too rigid in matters purely conscientious, where all the harm is diversity of judgment. 10. That I be not biassed with compassion to the poor, or favour to the rich, in point of justice. 11. That popular or court applause or dis- 3 34 LIFE OF SIR JIATTHEW HALE. taste have no influence into any thing I do in point of distribution of justice. 12. Not to be solicitous what men will say or think, so long as I keep myself exactly ac- cording to the rules of justice. 13. If in criminals it be a measuring cast, to incline to mercy and acquittal. 14. In criminals that consist merely in words, when no harm ensues, moderation is no in- justice. 15. In criminals of blood, if the fact be evi- dent, severity of justice. 16. To abhor all private solicitations, of what kind soever, and by whomsoever, in mat- ters depending. 17. To charge my servants, (1.) Not to in- terpose in any business whatsoever. (2.) Not to take more than their known fees. (3.) Not to give any imdue precedence to causes. (4.) Not to recommend counsel. 18. To be short and sparing at meals, that J mav be the fitter for business. CHAPTER III. He would never receive private addresses or recommendations from the greatest persons in any matter, in which justice was concerned. One of the first peers of England went once to his chamber, and told him, that having a suit in law to be tried before him, he was then to ac- LIFE OF SIR MATTffKW HALE. 35 quaint him with it, that he might the better un- derstand it, when it should come to be heard in court. Upon which the k)rd chief baron inter- rupted him, and said, he did not deal fairly to come to his chamber about such affairs ; for he never received any information of causes but in open court, where both parties were to be heard alike ; so he would not suffer him to go on. Whereupon his grace (for he was a duke) went away not a little dissatisfied, and complained of it to the king, as a rudeness that was not to be endured. But his majesty bade him content himself that he was no worse used ; and said, he verily believed he would have used himself no better, if he had gone to solicit him in any of his own causes. Another passage fell out in one of his circuits, which was somewhat censured as an affectation of an unreasonable strictness ; but it flowed from his exactness to the rules he had set him- self. A gentleman had sent him a buck for his table, that had a trial at the assizes ; so when he heard his name, he asked if he was not the same person that had sent him venison ; and finding he was the same, he told him he could not suffer the trial to go on till he had paid him for his buck. To which the gentleman an- swered, that he never sold his venison ; and that he had done nothing to him which he did not do to every judge that had gone that circuit; which was confirmed by several gentlemen then present : but ail would not do ; for the lord chief baron had learned from Solomon, that 36 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. " a gift perverteth the ways of judgment ;" and therefore he would not suffer the trial to go on, till he had paid for the present, upon which the gentleman withdrew the record. And at Salis- bury, the dean and chapter, having, according to custom, presented him with six sugar-loaves in his circuit, he made his servants pay for the sugar before he would try their cause. It was not so easy for him to throw off the importunities of the poor, for whom his com- passion wrought more powerfully than his regard to wealth and greatness ; yet, when jus- tice was concerned, even that did not turn him out of the way. There was one that had been put out of a place for some ill behaviour, who urged the lord chief baron to set his hand to a certificate to restore him to it, or provide him with another ; but he told him plainly his fault was such that he could not do it. The other pressed him vehemently, and fell down on his knees, and begged it of him with many tears ; but finding that could not prevail, he said he should be utterly ruined if he did not, and he should curse him for it every day. But that having no effect, then he fell out into all the reproachful words that passion and despair could inspire him with ; to which all the an- swer the lord chief baron made was, that he could very well bear all his reproaches, but he could not for all that set his hand to his certifi- cate. He saw he was poor, so he gave him a large charity and sent him away. But now he was to go on after his pattern. LIFE OK SIR MATTHEW HALE. 37 Pomponius Alticiis, still to favour and relieve them that were lowest ; so besides great chari- ties to the nonconformists, who were then, as lie thought, too hardly used, he took great care to coyer them all he could from the severities some designed against them, and discouraged those who were inclined to stretch the laws too much against them. He lamented the differ- ences that were raised in the church very much; and, according to the impartiality of his justice, he blamed some things on both sides, which 1 shall set down with the same freedom that he spake them. He thought many of the noncon- formists had merited highly in the business of the king's restoration, and at least deserved that the terms of conformity should not have been made stricter than they were before the war. There was not then that dreadful prospect of popery that has appeared since. But that which afflicted him most was, that he saw the heats and contentions which followed upon those dif- ferent parties and interests, did take people off from the indispenable things of religion, and slackened the zeal of otherwise good men for the substance of it ; so much being spent about external and indinereiit things. It also gave advantages to atheists to treat the most sacred points of our holy faith as ridiculous, when they saw the professors of it contend so fiercely, and with such bitterness, about lesser matters. He was nuich offended at all those books that were written to expose the contrary sect to the scorn and contempt of the age, in a wanton and petu- 38 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. lant style. He thought such writers wounded the Christian religion through the sides of those who differed from them ; while a sort of lewd people, who, having assumed to themselves the title of the " Wits," (though but a very few of them have a right to it,) took up from both hands what they had said, to make one another appear ridiculous ; and from thence persuaded the world to laugh at both, and at all religion for their sakes ; and, therefore, he often wished there might be some law to make all scurrility or bit- terness in disputes about religion punishable. But as he lamented the proceeding too rigor- ously against the nonconfoniiists, so he declared himself always on the side of the Church of England ; and said, those of the separation were good men, but they had narrow souls, who would break the peace of the church about such inconsiderable matters as the points in difference w-ere. He scarcely ever meddled in state intrigues ; yet, upon a proposition that w^as set on foot by the Lord Keeper Bridgeman, for a comprehen- sion of the more moderate dissenters, and a limited indulgence toward such as could not be brought within the comprehension, he dispensed with his maxim of avoiding to engage in mat- ters of state. There were several meetings upon that occasion. The divine of the Church of England that appeared most considerably for it, was Dr. Wilkins, afterward promoted to the bishopric of Chester ; a man of as great a mind, as true a judgment, as eminent virtues, LIFE OF Sill MATTHEW HALE. 39 and of as ^ood a soul, as any I ever knew. He being- determined as well by his excellent tem- per, as by his foresight and prudence, by which he early perceived the great prejudices that re- lii{ion received, and the vast dangers the refor- mation was likely to fall under by those divi- sions, set about that project with the magnanimity that was indeed peculiar to himself; for though he was much censured by many of his own side, and seconded by very few, yet he pushed it as far as he could. After several conferences with two of the most eminent of the Presbyte- rian divines, heads were agreed on, some abate- ments were to be made, and explanations were to be accepted of. The particulars of that pro- ject beinsf thus concerted, they were brought to the lord chief baron, who put them in form of a bill, to be presented to tlie next session of par- liament. But two parties appeared vigorously against this design : the one was of some zealous cler- gymen, who thouLdit it below the dignity of the church to alter laws, and change settlements, for the sake of some whom they esteemed schismatics. They also believed it was better to keep them out of the church than bring them into it, .since a faction U}X)n that would arise in the church, which they thought might be more dangerous than the schism itself was. Besides, thoy said, if some things were now to be changed in compliance with the humour of a party, as soon as that was done, another })arty might demand other concessions ; and there 40 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. might be as good reasons invented for these as for those ; many such concessions might also shake those of our own communion, and tempt them to forsake us, and go over to the Church of Rome ; pretending that we changed so often, that they were thereby inclined to be of a church that was constant and true to herself. These were the reasons brought, and chiefly insisted on, against all comprehension ; and they wrought upon the greater part of the house of commons, so that they passed a vote against the receiving of any bill for that effect. There were others that opposed it upon very different ends : they designed to sheUer the papists from the execution of the law, and saw clearly that nothing could bring in popery so well as a toleration. But to tolerate popery barefaced would have startled the nation too much ; so it was necessary to hinder all the propositions for union, since the keeping up the differences was the best colour they could find for getting the toleration to pass only as a slack- ening the laws against dissenters, whose num- bers and wealth made it advisable to have some regard to them ; and under this pretence popery might have crept in more covered and less re- garded. So these counsels being more accept- able to some concealed papists then in great power, as has since appeared but too evidently, the whole project for comprehension was let fall ; and those who had set it on foot came to be looked on with an ill eve, as secret favour- LIFE OF SIR MATTHKW HALE. 41 ers of the dissenters, underminers of the church, and every thiii^ else that jealousy and distaste could cast on them. But upon this occasion the lord chief baron and Dr. Wilkins came to contract a firm and familiar friendship ; and the lord chief baron having much business, and little time to spare, did, to enjoy the other the more, what he had scarcely ever done before ; he went sometimes to dine with him. And though he lived in great friendship with some other eminent clergymen, as Dr. Ward, bishop of Salisbury ; Dr. Barlow, bishop of J.incoln ; Dr. Barrow, late master of Trinity CJollege ; Dr. Tillotson, dean of Canter- bury, and Dr. Stillingfleet, dean of St. Paul's ; (men so well known, and so much esteemed, that as it was no wonder the lord chief baron valued their conversation highly, so those of them that are yet alive will think it no lessening of the character they are so deservedly in, that they are reckoned among Judge Hale's friends ;) yet there was an intimacy and freedom in his converse with Bishop Wilkins, that was singu- lar to him alone. He had, during the late wars, lived in a long and entire friendship with the apostolical primate of Ireland, Bishop Usher : their curious searches into antiquity, and the sympathy of both their tempers, led them to a gTcat agreement almost in every thing. He held also great conversation with Mr. Baxter, who was his neighbour at Acton, on whom he looked as a person of frreat devotion and piety, and of a very subtile and quick apprehension : 42 LIFE OF SIR .MAITHEAV HALE. their conversation lay most in metaphysical and abstracted ideas and schemes. He looked with great sorrow on the impiety and atheism of the age ; and so he set himself to oppose it, not only by the shining example of his own life, but by engaging in a cause that indeed could hardly fall into better hands : and as he could not find a subject more worthy of himself, so there were (ew in the age that un- derstood it so well, and could manage it more skilfully. The occasion that first led him to write about it was this : he was a strict ob- server of the Lord's day ; in which, besides his constancy in the public worship of God, he used to call all his family together, and repeat to them the heads of the sermons, with some addi- tions of his own, which he fitted for their capa- cities and circumstances ; and that being done, he had a custom of shutting himself up for two or three hours ; which he either spent in his secret devotions, or on such profitable medita- tions as did then occur to his thoughts. He wrote them with the same simplicity that he formed them in his mind, without any art, or so much as a thought to let them be published. He never corrected them ; but laid them by, when he had finished them, having intended only to fix and preserve his own refiections in them ; so that he used no sort of care to polish them, or make the first draught perfecter than when they fell from his pen. These fell into the hands of a worthy person, and he judging, as well he miaht. that the couununicatinir them LIFE OF SIR .MATTHEW HALE. 43 to the world mi^ht be a public service, printed two volumes of them in octavo, a little before the author's death ; containing his CONTEMPLATIONS. 1. Of our latter end. 2. Of wisdom, and the fear of God. 3. Of the knowledge of Christ crucified. 4. The victory of faith over the world. 5. Of humility. 6. Jacob's vow. 7. Of contentalion. 8. Of afflictions. 9. A good method to entertain unstable and troublesome times. 10. Changes and troubles : a poem. 11. Of the redemption of time. 12. The great audit. 13. Directions touching keeping the Lord's day : in a letter to his children. 14. Poems written upon Christmas day. In the second Volume. 1. An inquiry touching happiness. 2. The chief end of man. 3. Upon Eccles. xii, 1, Remember thy Creator. 4. Upon Psalm h, 10, Create a clean heart in me. With a poem. 5. The folly and mischief of sin. 6. Of self-denial. 7. Motives to watchfulness, in reference to the good and evil angels. 44 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 8. Of moderation of the affections. 9. Of worldly hope and expectation. 10. Upon Heb. xiii, 14, We have here no continuing" city. 11. Of contentedness and patience. 12. Of moderation of anger. 13. A preparative against afflictions. 14. Of submission, prayer, and thanksgiving. 15. Of prayer and thanksgiving, on Psalm cxvi, 12. 16. Meditations on the Lord's prayer, with a paraphrase upon it. In them there appears a generous and true spirit of religion, mixed with most serious and fervent devotion ; and perhaps with the more advantage, that the style wants some correction, which shows they were the genuine productions of an excellent mind, entertaining itself in secret with such contemplations. The style is clear and masculine, in a due temper between flatness and affectation ; in which he expresses his thoughts both easily and decently. In writing these discourses, having run over most of the subjects that his own circumstances led liim chiefly to consider, he began to be in some pain to choose new arguments ; and therefore resolved to fix on a theme that should hold hitn longer. He was soon determined in his choice, by the immoral and irreligious principles and prac- tices that had so long vexed his righteous soul ; and therefore began a great design against LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 45 atheism ; the first part of which only is printed, of the ''Origination of Mankind," designed to prove the creation of the world, and the truth of the Mosaical history. The second part was of the nature of the soul, and of a future state. The third part was concerning the attributes of God, both from the abstracted ideas of him, and the light of nature, the evidence of Provi- dence, the notions of morality, and the voice of conscience. And the fourth part was concerning the truth and authority of the Scriptures, with answers to the objections against them. On writing these he spent seven years. He wrote them with so much consideration, that one, M'ho perused the oriijinal under his own hand, which was the first draught of it, told me, he did not remem- ber of any considerable alteration, perhaps not of twenty words in the whole work. The way of his writing them, only on the eve- nings of the Lord's day, when he was in town, and not much oftener when he was in the coun- try, made, that they are not so contracted, as it is very likely he would have writ them, if he had been more at leisure to have brought his thoughts into a narrower compass, and fewer words. But making some allowance for the largeness of the style, that volume that is printed is gene- rally acknowledcred to be one of the most per- fect pieces, both of learninij and reasoning, that has been written on that subject. And he who 46 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. read a greater part of the other vohimes told me, they were all of a piece with the first. When he had finished this work, he sent it by an unknown hand to bishop Wilkins, to de- sire his judgment of it : but he that brought it would give no other account of the author, but that he was not a clergyman. The Bishop and his vrorthy friend Dr. Tillotson read a great deal of it with much pleasure ; but could not imagine who could be the author, and how a man that was master of so much reason, and so great a variety of knowledge, should be so un- known to them, that they could not find him out by those characters which are so little common. At last I)r. Tillotson guessed it must be the lord chief baron ; to which the other presently agreed, wondering h^ had been so long in finding it out. So they went immediately to him, and the bishop thanking him for the entertainment he had received from his works, he blushed ex- tremely, not without some displeasure, appre- hending that the person he had trusted had dis- covered him. But the bishop soon cleared that, and told him he had discovered himself; for the learning of that book was so various, that none but he could be the author of it. And that bishop, having a freedom in delivering his opi- nion of things and persons, which perhaps few ever managed both with so much plainness and prudence, told him, there was nothing could be better said on these argimients, if he could bring it into a less compass : but if he had not leisure for that, he thouoht it much better to have it LITE OF SIR .MATTHKW HALE. 47 come out, though a little too large, than that the world should be dcpri\'ed of the good which it must needs do. But our judge had never liie opportunities of revising it, so a little be- fore his death he sent the first part of it to the press. In the beginning of it, he gives an essay of his excellent way of methodizing things ; in which he was so great a master, that whatever he undertook he would presently cast into so perfect a scheme, that he could never afterward con-ect it. lie runs out copiously upon the ar- gument of the impossibility of an eternal suc- cession of time, to show that time and eternity are inconsistent one with another ; and that therefore all duration that was past and defined by time, could not be from eternity ; and he shows the difierence between successive eter- nity already past, and one to come : so that though the latter is possible, the former is not so ; for all the parts of the former have actually been, and therefore being defined by time, cannot be eternal ; whereas the other are still future to all eternity; so that this reasoning cannot be turn- ed to prove the possibility of eternal successions that have been, as well as eternal successions that shall be. This he follows with a strength I never met with in any that managed it before him. He brings next all those moral arguments, to prove that the world had a beginning, agreeing to the account Moses gives of it ; as that no his- tory rises higher, than near the time of the 48 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. deluge ; and that the first foundation of kingdoms, the invention of arts, the beginnings of all reli- gions, the gradual plantation of the world, and increase of mankind, and the consent of nations, do agree with it. In managing these, as he shows profound skill both in historical and phi- losophical learning ; so he gives a noble dis- covery of his great candour and probity, that he would not impose on the reader with a false show of reasoning by arguments that he knew had flaws in them ; and therefore upon every one of these he adds such allays as in a great mea- sure lessened and took off their force, with as much exactness of judgment and strictness of censure, as if he had been set to plead for the other side ; and indeed sums up the whole evi- dence for religion as impartially as ever he did in a trial for life or death to the jury, which how equally and judiciously he always did, the whole nation well knows. After that he examines the ancient opinions of the philosophers ; and enlarges with a great variety of curious reflections, in answering that only argument that has any appearance of strength for the casual production of man, from the origination of insects out of putrefied matter, as is commonly supposed ; and he concluded the book, showing how rational and philosophi- cal the account which Moses gives of it is. There is in it all a sagacity and quickness of thought, mixed with great and curious learning, that i confess I never met together in any other book on that subject. Among other conjectures, LIFE Of SIR MATTHEW HALE. 49 one he gives concerning the deluge is, that he did not think the face of the earth and the wa- ters were altogether the same before the uni- versal deluge, and after ; '• but possibly the face of the earth was more even than now it is ; the seas possibly more dilated and extended, and not so deep as now." And a little after, " Pos- sibly the seas have undermined much of the appearing continent of earth." This I the rather take notice o\\ because it hath been, since his death, made out in a most ingenious and most elegantly written book, by Mr, Burnet, of Christ's College, in Cambridge, who has given such an essay toward the proving the possibility of a universal deluge, and from thence has collected with great sagacity, what paradise was before it, as has not been offered by any philosopher before him. While the judge was thus employing his time, the Lord Chief Justice Keyling dying, he was, on May 18th, 1671, promoted to be lord chief justice of England. He had made the pleas of the crown one of his chief studies ; and by much search, and long observation, had com- posed that great work concerning them, former- ly mentioned ; he that holds the high office of justiciary in that court being the chief trustee and asserter of the liberties of his country. All people applauded this choice, and thought their liberties could not be better deposited than in the hands of one, that, as he understood them well, so he had all the justice and courage that so sacred a trust required. One thing was 4 50 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. much observed and commended in him ; that when there was a great inequality in the abihty and learning of the counsellors that were to plead one against another, he thought it became him, as the judge, to supply that : so he Avould enforce what the weaker counsel managed but indifferently, and not suffer the more learned to carry the business by the advantage they had over the others, in their quickness and skill in law, and readiness in pleading, till all things were cleared in v/hich the merits and strength of the ill-defended cause lay. He was not sa- tisfied barely to -give his judgment in causes ; but did, especially in all intricate ones, give such an account of the reasons that prevailed with him, that the counsel did not only acquiesce in his authority, but were so convinced by his reasons, that I have heard many profess, that he brought them often to change their opinions ; so that his giving of judgment was really a learned lecture upon that point of law ; and which was yet more, the parties themselves, though interest does too commonly corrupt the judgment, were generally satisfied with the jus- tice of his decisions, even when they were made against them. His impartial justice and gTeat diligence drew the chief practice after him, into whatsoever court he came. Since, though the courts of the common pleas, the ex- chequer, and the king's bench, are appointed for the trial of causes of different natures ; yet it is easy to bring most causes into any of them, as the counsel or attorneys please : so, as he LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 51 had drawn the business much alter him, both into tile common pleas and the exchequer, it now followed him into the king's bench ; and many causes, that were depending in the ex- chequer, and not determined, were let fall tliere, and brought again before him in the court to which he was now removed. And here did he spend the rest of his public life and employ- ment. But about four years and a half after this advancement, he, who had hitherto enjoy- ed a firm and vigorous health, to which his great temperance, and the equality of his mind, did not a little conduce, was on a sudden brought very low by an inflammation in his midriff', which in two days' time broke the constitution of his health to such a degree that he never recover- ed it. He became so asthmatical, that with great difficulty he could fetch his breath, that determined in a dropsy, of which he afterward died. He understood physic so well, that, con- sidering his age, he concluded his distemper must carry him ofT in a little time ; and, there- fore, he resolved to have some of the last months of his life reserved to himself, that, being freed from Jill worldly cares, he might be preparing for his change. He was also so much disabled in his body, that he could hardly, though supported by his servants, walk through Westminster Hall, or endure the toil of business. He had been a long time wearied with the distractions that his employment had brought f»n him, and his profes- sion was become ungrateful to him. He loved to apply himself wholly to better purposes, as 62 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. will appear by a paper tuat he wrote on this subject, which I shall here insert. " First, If I consider the business of my profession, whether as an advocate or as a judge ; it is true, I do acknowledge, by the in- stitution of almighty God, and the dispensation of his providence, I am bound to industry and fidelity in it : and as it is an act of obedience unto his will, it carries with it some things of religious duty, and I may and do take comfort in it, and expect a reward of my obedience to him, and the good that I do to mankind therein, from the bounty, and beneficence, and promise of almighty God. And it is true also, that with- out such employments civil societies cannot be supported, and great good redounds to mankind from them : and in these respects, the con- science of my own industry, fidelity, and integ- rity in them, is a great comfort and satisfaction to me. But yet this I must say concerning these employments, considered simply in them- selves, that they are very full of cares, anxieties, and perturbations. " Secondly, That though they are beneficial to others, yet they are of the least benefit to him that is employed in them. " Thirdly, That they do necessarily involve the party, whose office it is, in great dangers, difficulties, and calumnies. " Fourthly, That they only serve for the meridian of this life, which is short and uncer- tain. LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 53 " Fifthly, That though it be my duty faith- fully to serve in them, while I am called to them, and till I am duly called from them, yet they are great consumers of that little time we have here ; which, as it seems to me, might be better spent in a pious contemplative life, and a due provision for eternity. I do not know a better temporal employment than Martha had, in testifying her love and duty to our Saviour, by making provision for him : yet our Lord tells her, that though she was troubled about many things, there was only one thing necessary ; and .Mary had chosen the better part." By this the reader will see, that he continu- ed in his station upon no other consideration, but that being set in it by the providence of God, he judged he could not abandon that post which was assigned him, without preferring his own private inclination to the choice God had made for him. But now that same providence having by this great distemper disengaged him from the obligation of liolding a place which he was no lonoer able to discharge, he resolved to resign it. This was no sooner surmised abroad, than it drew upon him the importunities of all his friends, and the clamour of the whole town, to divert him from it ; but all was to no purpose. There was but one argument that could move him, which was, that he was obliged to con- tinue in the employment God had put him in, for the good of the public. But to this he had such an answer that even those who were most 54 LIFE OF SIR, MATTHEW HALE. concerned in his withdrawing could not but see that the reasons inducing him to it were but too strong. So he made application to his majesty for his writ of ease, which the king was very- unwilling to grant him, and offered to let hini hold his place still, he doing what business he could in his chamber : but he said, he could not with a good conscience continue in it, since he was no longer able to discharge t'ue duty belonging to it. But yet such was the general satisfaction which all the kingdom received by his excel- lent administration of justice, that the king, though he could not well deny his request, yet he deferred the granting of it as Jong as was possible. Nor could the lord chancellor be pre- vailed with to move the king to hasten his dis- charge, though the chief justice often pressed him to it. At last having wearied himself and all his friends with his importunate desires, and grow- ing sensibly weaker in body, he did, upon the twenty-first day of February, 28 Car. II. anno dom. 1675-6, go before a master of the chancery, with a little parchment deed, drawn by himself, and written all with his own hand, and there sealed and delivered it, and acknowledged it to be enrolled ; and afterward he brought the original deed to the lord chancellor, and did formally surrender his office. He had the day before surrendered to the king in person, who parted from him with great grace, wishing him most heartily the return of LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 55 his health, and assuring him, that he would still look upon him as one of his judges, and have recourse to his advice when his health would permit ; and in the meantime would continue his pension during his life. The good man thought this bounty too great, and an ill precedent for the king ; and therefore wrote a letter to the lord treasurer, earnestly de- siring that his pension might be only during pleasure. But the king would grant it for life, and make it payable quarterly. And yet, for a whole month together, he would not sufler his servant to sue out his patent for his pension ; and when the first payment was received, he ordered a great partof itto charitable uses ; and said, he intended most of it should be so employed, as long as it was paid him. At last he happened to die upon the quarter day, which was Christmas day ; and though this might have given some occasion to a dispute, whether the pension for that quarter were re- coverable, yet the king was pleased to decide that matter against himself, and ordered the pen- sion to be paid to his executors. CHAPTER IV. As soon as he was discharged from his great place, he returned home with as nnich cheerful- ness as his want of health could admit of; be- inir Tiow eased of a burden he had been of late 56 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. groaning under, and so made more capable of enjoying that which he had much wished for, according to his elegant translation of, or rather paraphrase upon, those excellent lines in Sene- ca's Thyestes, act ii. Stct quicunque volet patens Aulge culmine lubrico : Me dulcis saturet quies. Obscuro positus loco, Leni perfruar otio. Nultis nota Quiritibus --Etas per taciturn fluat. Sic cum transierint me' Nullo cum strepitu dies» Plebeius moriar senex. Illi mars gravis incubat^ Qui notus nimis omnibus, Ignotus moritur sibi. " Let him that will ascend the tottering seat Of courtly grandeur, and become as great As are his mounting wishes : as for me, Let sweet repose and rest my portion be. Give me some mean, obscure recess ; a sphere Out of the road of business, or the fear Of falling lower : where I sweetly may Myself and dear retirement still enjoy. Let not my life or name be known unto The grandees of the time, tost to and fro By censures or applause ; but let my age Slide gently by ; not overthwart the stage Of public action, unheard, unseen. And unconcem'd, as if I ne^er had been. And thus, while I shall pass niy silent day, In shady privacy, free from the noise And bustles of the mad world, then shall I A good old innocent plebeian die. Death is a mere surprise, a very snare To him that makes it his life's greatest care W W^: LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 57 To be a public pageant known to all, But unacquainted with himself doth fall." Having now attained to that privacy which he had no less seriously than piously wished for, he called all his servants that had belonged to his office together, and told them he had now laid down his place, and so their employments were determined. Upon that, he advised them to see for themselves, and gave to some of them very considerable presents ; and to every one of them a token ; and so dismissed all those that were not his domestics. He was discharged February 1.5th, 1675-6, and lived till the Christ- mas following ; but all the while was in so ill a state of health, that there was no hope of his re- covery. He continued still to retire often, both for his devotions and studies ; and, as long as he could go, went constantly to his closet : and when his infirmities increased on him, so that he was not able to go thither himself, he made his servants carr\'him thither in a chair. At last, as the winter came on, he saw, with great joy, his deliverance approaching : for, besides his being we.iry of the world, and his longings for the blessedness of another state, his pains in- creased so on him, tbat no patience inferior to his could have borne them without a great unea- siness of mind; yet he expressed to the last -uch submission to the will of God, and so equal t temper under them, that it was visible then what mighty eflecfs his philosophy and Chris- tianity had on him, in supporting liim under such a heavy load. 58 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. He could not lie down in bed above a year before his death, by reason of the asthma ; but sat rather than lay in it. He was attended on in his sickness by a pious and worthy divine, jNIr. Evan Griffith, minister of the parish ; and it was observed, that in all the extremities of his pain, whenever he prayed by him, he forebore all complaints or groans ; but with his hand and eyes lifted up, was fixed in his devotions. Not long before his death, the minister told him, there was to be a sacrament next Sunday at church ; but he be- lieved he could not come and partake with the rest ; therefore he would give it to him in his own house. But he answered, no ; his heaven- ly Father had prepared a feast for him, and he would go to his Father's house to partake of it. So he made himself be carried thither in his chair, where he received the sacrament on his knees, with great devotion ; which it may be supposed was the greater, because he appre- hended it was to be his last, and so took it as his viaticum, and provision for his journey. He had some secret unaccountable presages of his death"; for he said that if he did not die on such a day, (which fell to be November 25th,) he be- lieved he should live a month longer ; and he died that very day month. He continued to en- joy the free use of his reason and sense to the last moment, which he had often and earnestly prayed for during his sickness. And when his voice was so sunk that he could not be heard, they perceived, by the almost constant lifting up LIFE OF SIR .MATTHEW HALE. 59^ of his eyes and hands, that he was still aspiring toward that blessed state of which he was now speedily to be possessed. He had for many years a particular devotion for Christmas day ; and after he had received the sacrament, and been in the performance of the public worship ofthat day, he commonly wrote a copy of verses on the honour of his Saviour, as a fit expression of the joy he felt in his soul at the return of that glorious anniversary. There are seventeen of those copies printed, which he wrote on seventeen several Christmas days, by which the world has a taste of his po- etical genius ; in which, if he had thought it worth his time to have excelled, he might have been eminent, as well as in other things ; but he wrote them rather to entertain himself, than to merit the laurel. 1 shall here add one, which has not been yet printed ; and it is not uidikely it was the last he wrote. It is a paraphrase on Simeon's song. I take it from his blotted copy, not at all finished ; so the reader is to make allowance for any im- perfection he may find in it. " Blkssed Creator, who before the birth Of lime, or ere the pillars of the earth Were fix'd or foriird, didst lav that great design Of man's redemption ; and didst define In ihinc eternal counsels all the scene Of that stupendous business, and when It should appear: and thoimh the very day Of its epiphany concealed lay Within thy mind, yet thou wert pleased to show Some crhmpses of it unto men below, 60 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. In visions, types, and prophecies ; as we Things at a distance in perspective see. But thou wert pleased to let thy servant know That that bless'd hour, that seenn'd to move so slow Through former ages, should at last attain Its time, ere my few sands, that yet remain, Are spent ; and that these aged eyes Should see the day when Jacob's Star should rise. And now thou hast fulfill'd it, blessed Lord, Dismiss me now, according to thy word ; And let my aged body now return To rest, and dust, and drop into an urn : For I have lived enough ; mine eyes have seen Thy much-desired salvation, that hath been So long, so dearly wish'd, the joy, the hope Of all the ancient patriarchs, the scope Of all the prophecies and mysteries, Of all the types unveil'd, the histories Of Jewish church unriddled, and the bright And orient sun arisen to give light To Gentiles, and the joy of Israel, The world's Redeemer, bless'd Emmanuel. Let this sight close mine eyes ; 'lis loss to see, After this vision, any sight but thee." Thus he used to sing on the former Christ- mas days ; but now he was to be admitted to bear his part in the new songs above : so that day, which he had spent in so much spiritual joy, proA'ed to be indeed the day of his jubilee and deliverance ; for between two and three in the afternoon he breathed out his righteous and pious soul. His end was peace ; he had no strugglings, nor seemed to be in any pangs in his last moments. He was buried on January 4th, Mr. Griffith preaching the funeral sermon. His text was Isaiah Ivii, 1, "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart ; and LIFE or sill MATTHEW HALE. 61 merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous are taken away from the evil to come." Which, how fitly it was applicable upon this occasion, all that consider the course of his life will easily conclude. He was inter- red in the church-yard of Alderley, among his ancestors. He did not much approve of bury- ing in churches ; and used to say the churches were for the living, and the church-yards for the dead. His monument was like himself, decent and plain : the tombstone was black marble, and the sides were black and white marble ; upon which he himself had ordered this bare and humble inscription to be made : — HIC IXHUMATUR CORPUS MATTH.EI HALE, MILITIS ; ROBERTI HALE, ET JOHANX.E, UXORIS EJUS, FILII UXICI. XATI IX HAG PAROCHIA DE ALDERLEY, PRIMO DIE XOVEMBRIS, AXXO DOM. MDCIX. DEXATI VERO IBIDEM VICESSIMO QLnXTO DIE DECEMBRIS, ANNO DOM. MDCLXXVI. ^TATIS SU^ LXVII. Having thus given an account of the most re- markable things of his life, I am now to pre- sent the reader with such a character of him, as the laying his several virtues together will amount to : in which 1 know how difficult a task I undertake ; for to write defectively of him were to injure him, and lessen the memory of one to whom I intend to do all the right that is 62 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. in my power. On the other hand, there is so much here to be commended, and proposed for the imitation of others, that I am afraid some may imagine I am rather making a picture of him, from an abstracted idea of great virtues and perfections, than setting him out as he truly was. But there is great encouragement in this, that I write concerning a man so fresh in all people's remembrance, that is so lately dead, and Avas so much and so well known, that I shall have many vouchers, who will be ready to justify me in that all I am to relate, and to add a great deal to what I can say. It has appeared in the account of his various learning how great his capacities were, and how much they were improved by constant study. He rose always early in the morning ; he loved to walk much abroad ; not only for his health, but he thought it opened his mind, and enlarged his thoughts, to have the creation of God before his eyes. When he set himself to any study, he used to cast his design in a scheme, which he did with a great exactness of method : he took nothing on trust, but pursued his inquiries as far as they could go ; and as he was humble enough to confess his ignorance, and submit to mysteries which he could not comprehend, so he was not easily imposed on by any shows of reason, or the bugbears of vulgar opinions. He brought all his knowledge as much to scientifi- cal principles as he possibly could, which made him neglect the study of tongues : for the bent of his mind lay. another way. Discoursing once LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 63 of this to some, they said they looked on the common law as a study that could not be brought into a scheme, nor formed into a rational science, bv reason of the indigestedness of it, and the multiplicity of the cases in it, which rendered it very hard to be understood, or reduced into a method. But he said, he was not of their mind ; and so, quickly after, he drew with his own hand a scheme of the whole order and parts of it, in a large sheet of paper, to the great satis- faction of those to whom he sent it. Upon this hint, some pressed him to compile a body of the English law : it could hardly ever be done by a man who knew it better, and would with more judgment and industry have put it into method. But he said, as it was a great and noble design, which would be of vast advantage to the nation ; so it was too much for a private man to undertake : it was not ^o be entered upon, but by the command of a prince, and with the communicated endeavours of some of the most eminent of the profession. He had great vivacity in his fancy, as may appear by his inclination to poetry, and the lively illustrations, and many tender strains in his contemplations : but he looked on eloquence and wit as things to be used very chastely in serious matters, which should come under a se- verer inquiry. Therefore he was, both when at the bar and on the bench, a great enemy to all elo(juence or rhetorick in pleading. He said, if the judge or jury had a risjht understanding, it signified nothing but a waste of time, and 64 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. loss of words ; and if they were weak, and easily wrought on, it was a more decent way of corrupting them by bribing their fancies, and biassing their affections : and w^ondered much at that affectation of the French lawyers, in imitating the Roman orators in their pleadings ; for the oratory of the Romans was occasioned by their popular government, and the factions of the city : so that those who intended to excel in the pleading of causes were trained up in the schools of the rhetors, till they became ready and expert in that luscious way of dis- course. It is true, the composures of such a man as Tully was, who mixed an extraordinary quickness, an exact judgment, and a just deco- rum with his skill in rhetoric, do still entertain the readers of them with great pleasure ; but at the same time it must be acknowledged, that there is not tkat chastity of style, that closeness of reasoning, nor that justness of figures in his orations, that are in his other writings ; so that a great deal was said by him, rather because he knew it would be acceptable to his auditors, than that it was approved of by himself; and all who read them will acknowledge, they are better pleased w4th them as essays of wit and style, than as pleadings, by which such a judge as ours was would not be much wrought on. And if there are such grounds to censure the performances of the greatest master in elo- quence, we may easily infer what nauseous discourses the other orators made ; since in oratory, as well as in poetry, none can do in- LIFE OF SIR MATTIIKW HALE. 65 diflerently. So our judge wondered to find the French, that live under a monarchy, so fond of imitating that which was an ill effect Oi the popular government of Rome. He, therefore, pleaded himself always in few words, and home to the point. And when he was a judge, he held those that pleaded before him to the main hinge of the business, and cut them short when they made excursions about circumstances of no moment ; by which he saved much time, and made the chief dithculties be well stated and cleared. There was another custom among the Romans which he as much admired as he despised their rhetoric ; which was, that the jurisconsults were the men of the highest quality, who were bred to be capable of the chief employment in the state, and became the great masters of their law. These gave their opinions of all cases that were put to them freely, judging it below them to take any present for it ; and, indeed, they only were the true lawyers among them, whose resolutions were of that authority, that they made one classis of those materials, out of which 'J'rebonian compiled the Digests under Justi- nian ; for the orators, or causidici, that pleaded causes, knew little of the law, and only employ- ed their mercenary tongues to work on the affections of the people and senate, or the prae- tors. Even in most of Tully's orations there is litth^ of law; and that little, which they might sprinkle in their declamations, they had not from their own knowledge, but the resolution 66 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. of some jurisconsult ; according to that famous story of Servius Sulpitius, who was a celebrated orator, and being to receive the resolution of one of those that were learned in the law, was so ignorant, that he could not understand it ; upon which the jurisconsult reproached him, and said, it was a shame for him, that was a nobleman, a senator, and a pleader of causes, to be thus ig- norant of the law. This touched him so sensi- bly that he set about the study of it, and became one of the most eminent jurisconsults that ever were at Rome. Our judge thought it might become the greatness of a prince to encourage such a sort of men, and of studies ; in which none in the age he lived in was equal to the great Selden, who was truly in our English law what the old Roman jurisconsults were in theirs. But where a decent eloquence was allowable, Judge Hale knew how to have excelled as much as any, either in illustrating his reasonings by proper and well-pursued similes, or by such tender expressions as might work most on the affections ; so that the present lord chancellor has often said of him since his death, that he was the greatest orator he had known ; for though his words came not fluently from him, yet when they were out, they were the most significant and expressive that the matter could bear. Of this sort there are many in his Con- templations, made to quicken his own devotions ; which have a life in them becoming him that useth them, and a softness fit to melt even the LIKK OF SIR MATTHFW HALF. 67 harshest tempers, accommodated to the gravity of the subject, and apt to excite warm thoughts in the readers ; that as they show his excellent temper that brought them out, and appUed them to himseh', so they are of great use to all who would both inform and quicken their minds. Of his illustrations of things by proper similes I shall give a large instance, out of his book of the " Origination of Mankind," designed to ex- pose the several different hypotheses the philo- sophers fell on concerning the eternity and ori- ginal of the universe ; and to prefer the account given by Moses to all their conjectures : in which, if my taste does not misguide me, the reader will find a nire and very agreeable mix- ture both of fine wit and solid learning and judgment. " That which may illustrate my meaning in this preference of the revealed light of the holy Scriptures, touching this matter, above the es- says of a philosophical imagination, may be this. Suppose that Greece, being unacquainted with the curiosity of mechanical engines, though known in some remote region of the world ; and that an excellent artist had secretly brought, and deposited in some field or forest some ex- cellent watch or clock, which had been so formed that the original of its motion were hid- den, and involved in some close-contrived piece of mechanism ; that this watch was so framed that the motion thereof mii,dit have lasted a year, or some such time as misiht give a reasonable period for their philosophical descanting con- 68 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. cerning it ; and that in the plain table there had been not only the description and indication of hours, but the configurations and indications of the various phases of the moon, the motion and place of the sun in the ecliptic, and divers other curious indications of celestial motions ; and that the scholars of the several schools of Epicurus, of Aristotle, of Plato, and the rest of those philosophical sects, had casually in their vi^alk found this admirable automaton ; what kind of work would there have been made by every sect, in giving an account of this pheno- menon ? We should have had the Epicurean sect have told the by-standers, according to their preconceived hypothesis, that this was nothing else but an accidental concretion of atoms, that happily fallen together had made up the index, the wheels, and the balance ; and that being happily fallen into this posture, they were put into motion. Then the Cartesian falls in with him, as to the main of their supposition ; but tells him that he does not sufficiently explicate how the engine is put into motion ; and therefore, to furnish this motion, there is a certain materia siibtilis, that pervades this engine, and the moveable parts, consisting of certain globular atoms, apt for motion ; they are thereby, and by the mobilit5' of the globular atoms, put into mo- tion. A tliird finding fault with the two former, because those motions are so regular, and do express the various phenomena of the distribu- tion of time, and of the heavenly motions ; there- fore it seems to him, that this engine, and motion LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. G9 also, SO analogical to the motions of the heavens, was wrought by some admirable conjunction of the heavenly bodies, which formed this instru- ment, and its motions, in such an admiralile correspondency to its own existence. A fourtb, disliking the suppositions of the three former, tells the rest, that he hath a more plain and evident solution of the phenomenon, namely, the universal soul of the world, or spirit of na- ture, that formed so many sorts of insects with so many organs, faculties, and such congruity of their whole composition, and such curious and various motions, as we may observe in them, hath formed and set into motion this ad- mirable automaton, and regulated and ordered it, with all these congruities we see in it. Then steps in an Aristotelian, and being dissatisfied with all the former solutions, tells them, ' Gen- tlemen, you are all mistaken ; your solutions are inexplicable and unsatisfactory ; you have taken up certain precarious hypotheses, and being prepossessed with these creatures of your own fancies, and in love with them, right or wrong, you form all your conceptions of things accord- ing to those fancied and preconceived imagina- tions. The short of the business is, this ma- chine is eternal, and so are all the motions of it ; and inasmuch as a circular motion hath no beginning or end, this motion that you see both in the wheels and index, and the successive indications of the celestial motions, is eternal, and without beginning. And this is a ready and expeditious way of solving the pheno- 70 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. mena, without so much ado as you have made about it.' " And while all the masters were thus con- triving the solution of the phenomenon, in the hearing of the artist that made it : and when they had all spent their philosophizing upon it, the artist that made this engine, and all this while listened to their .admirable fancies, tells them, ' Gentlemen, you have discovered very much excellency of invention, touching this piece of work that is before you ; but you are all miserably mistaken ; for it was I that made this watch, and brought it hither ; and I will show you how I made it. First, I wrought the spring, and the fusee, and the wheels, and the balance, and the case and table ; I fitted them one to another, and placed these several axes that are to direct the motions, of the index to discover the hour of the day, of the figure that discovers the phases of the moon, and the other various mo- tions that you see : and then I put it together and wound up the spring, which hath given all these motions that you see in this curious piece of work ; and that you may be sure I tell you true, I will tell you the whole order and pro- gress of my making, disposing, and ordering of this piece of work ; the several materials of it ; the manner of the forming of every individual part of it, and how long I was about it.' This plain and evident discovery renders all these excogitated hypotheses of those philosophical enthusiasts vain and ridiculous, without any great help of rhetorical flourishes, or logical MFK oi' ?iiii iMA'i TJii;\v hall;. 71 confutations. And much of the same nature is that disparity of the hypotheses of the learned philosophers, in relation to the origination of the world and man, after a great deal of dust raised, and fanciful explications and unintelligible hy- potheses. The plain but divine narrative by the hand of Moses, full of sense and congruity, and clearness, and reasonableness in itself, does at the same moment give us a true and clear dis- covery of this great mystery, and renders all the essays of the generality of the heathen philoso- phers to be vain, inevident, and indeed inexpli- cable theories, the creatures of phantasy and imagination, and nothing else." CHAPTER V. A8 for his virtues, ihey have appeared so con- spicuous in all the several transactions and turns of his life, that it may seem needless to add any more of them than has been already related : but there are many particular instances, which I knew not how to lit to the several years of his life, which will give us a clearer and better view of him. Ho was a devout Christian, a sincere Pro- testant, and a true son of the Church of Eng- land ; moderate toward dissenters, and just even to those from whom he differed most ; which appeared signally in the care he took of pre- serving the Quakers from tliat mischief that was 72 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. likely to fall on them by declaring their mar- riages void, and so bastarding their children : but he considered marriage and succession as a right of nature, from which none ought to be barred, what mistake soever they might be un- der in the points of revealed religion. And therefore, in a trial that was before him, when a Quaker was sued for some debts owing by his wife before he married her, and the Quaker's counsel pretended that it was no mar- riage that had passed between them, since it was not solemnized according to the rules of the Church of England ; he declared, that he was not willing on his own opinion to make their chiklren bastards, and gave directions to the jury to find it special. It was a reflection on the whole party, that one of them to avoid an inconvenience he had fallen in, thought to have preserved himself by a defence, that, if it had been allowed in law, must have made their whole issue bastards, and incapable of succes- sion. And for all their pretended friendship to one another, if this judge had not been more their friend than one of those they so called, their posterity had been iitfle beholden to them. But he governed himself indeed by the law of the gospel, of doing to others what he would have others do to him ; and therefore, because he would have thought it a hardship not with- out cruelty, if, among Papists all marriages were nulled which had not been made with all the ceremonies in the Roman ritual ; so he, applying this to the case of the sectaries, LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 73 thoujTlit all marriages made according to the several persuasions of men, ought to have their effects in law. He used constantly to worship God in his family, performing it always himself, if there was no clergyman present. But as to his pri- vate exercises in devotion, he took that extraor- dinary care to keep what he did in secret, that this part of his character must be defective, ex- cept it be acknowledged that his humility in covering it commends him mucli more than the liighest expressions of devotion could have done. From the first titne that the impressions of relioion settled deeply in his mind, he used great caution to conceal it ; not only in obedi- ence to what he believed to be the command of our Saviour, of fasting, praying, and giving alms in secret ; but from a particular distrust he had of himself ; for he said, he was afraid he should at some time or other do some enormous thing, which, if he were looked on as a very religious man, might cast a reproach on the profession of it, and give great advantages to impious men to blaspheme the name of God. But " a tree is known by its fruits ;" and he lived not only free from blemishes or scandal, but shone in all the j)arts of his conversation. And perhaps the distrust he was in of himself contributed not a little to the purity of his life ; for he being thereby obliged to be more watchful over him- self, and to depend more on the aids of the Spi- rit of God, no wonder if that humble temper produced those excellent elVecls in him. 74 LIFE OF iilK MATTHEW HALE He had a soul enlarged and raised above that mean appetite of loving money, which is gene- rally the root of all evil. He did not take the prolits that he might have had by his practice ; for in common cases, when those who came to ask his counsel gave him a piece, he used to give l)ack the half, and so made ten shillings his fee, in ordinary matters that did not require much time or study. If he saw a cause was unjust, he for a great while would not meddle farther in it, but to give his advice that it was so. If the parties after that would go on, they were to seek another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice. If he found the cause doubtful, or weak in point of law, he always advised his clients to agree among themselves. Yet afterward he abated much of the scrupulosity he had about causes that ap- peared at first view unjust, upon this occasion : there were two causes brought to him, which, by the. ignorance of the party, or their attorney, were so ill represented to him, that they seemed to be very bad ; but he inquiring more narrowly into them, found they were really very good and just : so after this he slackened much of his former strictness of refusing to meddle in causes upon the ill circumstances that appeared in them at tirst. In his pleading he abhorred those too com- mon faults of misreciting evidences, quoting precedents or books falsely, or asserting things confidently ; by which ignorant juries, or weak judges, are too often wrought upon. He l.IFE OF SIK iMATlHKW HALE. 75 pleaded with the same sincerity that he used in the other parts of his life ; and used to say, " It was as great a dishonour as a man was capable of, that for a little money he w^as to be hired to say or do otherwise than as he thought." All this he ascribed to the unmeasurable desire of heap- ing up wealth, which corrupted the souls of some that seemed to be otherwise born and made for great things. When he was a practitioner, differences were often referred to him, which he settled ; but would accept of no reward for his pains, though offered by both parties together, after the agreement was made ; for he said, in those cases he was made a judge, and a judge ought to take no money. Tf they told him he lost much of his time in considering their business, and so ought to be acknowledged for it ; his an- swer was, (as one that heard it told me,) " Can I spend my time better than to make peo- ple friends ? Must I have no time allowed me to do jjood in ?" He was naturally a quick man ; yet, by much practice on himself, he subdued that to such a degree, that he would never run suddenly into any conclusion concerning any matter of im- portance. Fcstina lentil was his beloved motto, which he ordered to be engraven on the head of his staff ; and was often heard say, that he had observed many witty men run into great errors, because they did not give themselves time to think; but the heat of imagination making some notions appear in good colours to 76 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. them, they, v/ithoiit staying till that cooled, were violently led by the impulses it made on them : whereas calm and slow men who pass for dull in the common estimation, could search after truth, and find it out, as with more dehbe- ration, so with greater certainty. He laid aside the tenth penny of all he got for the poor ; and took great care to be well in- formed of proper objects for his charities. And after he was a judge, many of the perquisites of his place, as his dividend of the rule and box money, w^ere sent by him to the jails, to dis- charge poor prisoners, who never knew from whose hands their relief came. It is also a custom for the marshal of the king's bench to present the judges of that court with a piece of plate for a new-year's gift, that of the chief jus- tice being larger than the rest. This he intend- ed to have refused ; but the other judges told him, it belonged to his office, and the refusing it would be a prejudice to his successors ; so he was persuaded to take it ; but he sent word to the marshal, that, instead of the plate, he should bring him the value of it in money; and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the pri- sons for the relief and discharge of the poor there. He usually invited his poor neighbours to dine with him, and made them sit at table with himself : and ii^ any of them were sick, so that they could not come, he would send meat warm to them from his table. And he did not only relieve the poor in his own parish, but sent supplies to the neighbouring parishes, as there LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 77 was occasion for it ; and he treated them all with toiulcrnoss and familiarity that became one who considered they were of the same na- tnre with himself, and were reduced to no other necessities but such as he himself might be brought to. But for common beggars, if any of these came to him, as he was in his walks, when he lived in tlie country, he would ask such as were capable of working, why ihey went about so idly. If they answered, it was because they could find no work, he often sent them to some field, to gather all the stones in it, and lay them on a heap ; and then would pay them liberally for their pains. This beingdone, he used to send his carts, and caused them to be carried to such places of the highway as needed mending. But when he was in town, he dealt his cha- rities very liberally, even among the street beg- gars ; and when some told him, that he thereby encouraged idk-ness, and that most of these were notorious cheats, he used to answer, that he believed most of them were such ; but among tliL-m there were some that were great objects of charity, and pressed with grievous necessi- ties ; and that he had rather give his alms to tw<*nty who mit{ht be perhaps rogues, than that one of the other sort should perisli for want of that small relief which he gave them. He loved building much, which he affected chiefly, l)ecause it employed many poor people : but one thing was observed in all his buildings, that tjio fhanses he made in his houses were 78 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. always from magnificence to usefulness ; for he avoided every thing that looked like pomp or vanity, even in the walls of his houses. He had good judgment in architecture, and an ex- cellent faculty in contriving well. He was a gentle landlord to all his tenants, and was ever ready, upon any reasonable com- plaints, to make abate-ments ; for he was merci- ful as well as righteous. One instance of this was of a widow, that lived in London, and had a small estate near his house in the country ; from which her rents were ill returned to her, and at a cost, which she could not well bear : so she bemoaned herself to him ; and he, accord- ing to his readiness to assist all poor people, told her, he would order his steward to take up her rents, and the returning them should cost her nothing. But after that, when there was a falling of rents in that country, so that it was necessary to make abatements to the tenant, he would have it to lie on himself, and made the widow to be paid her rent as fonnerly. Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was, that when he found ill mo- ney had been put into his hands, he would never suffer it to be paid again ; for he thought it was no excuse for him to put false money in other people's hands, because some had put it into his. A great heap of this he had gathered to- gether ; for many had so far abused his good- ness as to mix base money among the fees that were given him. It is likely that he intended to destroy it ; but some thieves, who had ob- LITK OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 79 served it, broke into his chamber, and stole it, thinking they had got a prize ; which he used to tell with some pleasure, imagining how they found themselves deceived, when they perceived what sort of booty they had acquired. After he was made a judge, he would needs pay more lor every purchase that he made than it was worth. If it had been but a horse he was to buy, he would have outbid the price ; and when some represented to him, that he made ill bargains, he said, it became judges to pay more for what they bought than the true value ; that so those with whom they dealt might not think they had any right to their fa- vour, by having sold such things to them at an easy rate ; and said it was suitable to the repu- tation which a judge ought to preserve, to make such bargains, that the world might see they were not too well used upon some secret account. In sum, his estate did show how little he had minded the raising a great fortune : for from a liundred pounds a year he raised it not quite to nine hundred ; and of this a very considerable part came in by his share of Mr. Selden's es- tate ; yet this, considering his great practice whiU^ a counsellor, and his constant, frugal, and modest way of living, was but a small fortune. In tlie share that fell to him by Mr. 8elden's will, one memorable thing was done by him, with the other executors, by which they both allowed their regard to their dead friend, and their love of the public. His library was valued at some thousands ol' pounds, and was believed 80 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. to be one of the most curious collections in Eu- rope ; so they resolved to keep this entire, for the honour of Selden's memory, and gave it to the University of Oxford ; where a noble room was added to the former library for its recep- tion, and all due respects have been since show- ed by that great and learned body, to those their worthy benefactors, who not only parted so generously with this great treasure, but were a little put to it how to oblige them, without cross- ing the will of their dead friend. Mr. Sel- den had once intended to give his library to that university, and had left it so by his will ; but having occasion for a manuscript which belong- ed to their library, they asked of him a bond of a thousand pounds for its restitution ; this he took so ill at their hands, that he struck out that part of his will, by which he had given them his library, and with some passion declared they should never have it. The executors stuck at this a little ; but having considered better of it, came to this resolution, that they were to be the executors of Mr. Selden's will, and not of his passion ; so they made good what he had in- tended in cold blood, and passed over what his passion had suggested to him. The parting with so many excellent books would have been as uneasy to our judge, as any thing of that nature could be, if a pious regard to his friend's memory had not prevailed over him; for he valued books and manuscripts above all things in the world. He himself had made a great and rare collection of manuscripts be- LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 81 longing to the law of England ; he was forty years in gathering it : he himself said, it cost him about fifteen hundred pounds, and calls it in his will a treasure worth having and keep- ing, and not fit for every man's view. These all he left to Lincoln's Inn. By all these instances it docs appear how much he was raised above the world, or the love of it. But having thus mastered things without him, his next study was to overcome his own inclinations. He was, as he said him- self, naturally passionate ; I add, as he said him- self, for that appeared by no other evidence, save that sometimes his colour would rise a lit- tle ; but he so governed himself, that those who lived long about him have told me, they never saw him disordered with anger, though he met with some trials that the nature of man is as little able. to bear as any whatsoever. There was one that did him a great injury, which it is not necessary to mention, who coming after- ward to him for his advice in the settlement of his estate, he gave it very frankly to him, but would accept of no fee for it; and thereby show- ed both that he could forgive as a Christian, and that he had the soul of a gentleman in him, not to take money of one that had wronged him so heinously. And when he was asked by one, how he could use a man so kindly that had wronged 'him so much, his answer was, he thanked God he had learned to forget injuries. And besides the great temper he expressed in all his public employments, in his family he was 6 82 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. a very gentle master : he was tender of all his servants ; he never turned any away, except they were so faulty that there was no reclaim- ing them. When any of them had been long out of the way, or had neglected any part of their duty, he would not see them at their first coming home, and sometimes not till the next day, lest when his displeasure was quick upon him, he might have chid them indecently ; and when he did reprove them, he did it with that sweetness and gravity, that it appeared he \yas more concerned for their having done a fault, than for the offence given by it to himself But if they became immoral or unruly, then he turned them away ; for he said, He that by his place ought to punish disorders in other people, must by no means suffer them in his own house. He advanced his servants according to the time they had been about him ; and would never give occasion to envy among them, by raising the younger clerks above those who had been longer with him. He treated them all with great affec- tion, rather as a friend than a master, giving them often good advice and instruction. He made those who had good places vmder him give some of their profits to the other servants, who had nothing but their wages. When he made his will, he left legacies to every one of them ; but he expressed a more particular kind- ness for one of them, Robert Gibbo*n, of the Middle Temple, Esq., in whom he had that con- fidence that he left him one of his executors. I the rather mention him, because of his noble LIFK OK SIR MATTHtW HALE. 83 gratitude to his worthy benefactor and master ; lor he has been so careful to preserve his me- mory, that as he set those on me, at whose desire I undertook to write his life, so he has procured for me a great part of those memo- rials and informations out of which I have composed it. The judge was of a most tender and com- passionate nature ; this did eminently appear in his trying and giving sentence upon criminals, in which he was strictly careful, that not a cir- cumstance should be neglected which might any way clear the fact. He behaved him- self with that regard to the prisoners which became both the gravity of a judge and the pity that was due to men whose lives lay at stake, so that nothing of jeering or unreasonable se- verity ever fell from him. He also examined the witnesses in the softest manner, taking care that they should be put under no confusion, which might disorder their memory : and he summed all tlie evidence so equally, when he charg«-d the jury, that the criminals themselves never comi)lained of him. When it caine to him to give sentence, he did it with that com- poscdness and decency, and his speeches to the prisoners, directing them to prepare for death, were so woighty, so free from all afiectation, and so serious and devout, that many loved to goto the trials, when he sat judge, to be edified by his speeches and behaviour in them ; and used to say they heard very few such sermons. Hut ihougli the pronouncing the sentence of 84 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. death was the part of his employment that went most against the grain with him ; yet in that he could never be mollified to any tenderness which hindered justice. When he was once pressed to recommend some whom he had condemned to his majesty's mercy and pardon, he answer- ed, he could not think they deserved a pardon whom he himself had adjudged to die ; so that all he would do in that kind was to give the king a true account of the circumstances of the fact ; after which his majesty was to consider ■whether he would interpose his mercy, or let justice take place. His mercifulness extended even to his beasts ; for when the horses he had kept long grew old, he would not sufler them to be sold, or much wrought ; but ordered his men to turn them loose on his grounds, and put them only to easy work, such as going to market, and the like ; he used old dogs also with the same care ; his shepherd having one that was become blind with age, he intended to have killed or lost him ; but the judge coming to hear of it made one of his servants bring him home, and fed him till he died. And he was scarcely ever seen more angry than with one of his servants for neglecting a bird that he kept, so that it died for want of food. He was a great encourager of all young per- sons that he saw followed their books diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that came LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 85 near him ; and in a smiling pleasant way he would admonish them, if he saw any thing amiss in them ; particularly if they went too fine in their clothes, he would tell them, it did not become their profession. He was not plf"\sed to see students wear long perriwigs, or attorneys go with swords ; so that such young men as would not be persuaded to part with those vanities, when they went to him laid them aside, and went as plain as they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise expect. He was very free and communicative in his discourse, which he most commonly fixed on some good and useful subject ; and loved fol an hour or two at night to be visited by some of his friends. He neither said nor did any thing with aflectation ; but used a simpHcity that was both natural to himself, and very easy to others ; and though he never studied the modes of civility or court breeding, yet he knew not what it was lo be rude or harsh with any, except he w^ere impertinently addressed in matters of jus- tice ; then he would raise his voice a little, and so shake off those importunities. In his furniture, and the service of his table, and way of living, he liked the old plainness so well, that as he would set up none of the new fashions, so he rather affected a coarseness in the use of tlie old ones ; which was more the elTopt of his philosophy than disposition, for he loved fine things too nuich at first. He was always of an equal temper, rather cheerful than 86 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. merry. Many wondered to see the evenness of his deportment, in some very sad passages of his life. Having lost one of his sons, the manner of whose death had some gTievous circumstances in it, one coming to see him and condole, he said to him, those were the effects of living long ; such must live to see many sad and un- acceptable things ; and having said that he went to other discourses with his ordinary freedom of mind ; for though he had a temper so tender, that sad things were apt to make deep impres- sions upon him, yet the regard he had to the wisdom and providence of God, and the just estimate he made of external things, did to ad- miration maintain the tranquillity of his mind ; and he gave no occasion by idleness to melan- choly to corrupt his spirit ; but by the perpetual bent of his thoughts he knew well how to divert them from being oppressed with the excesses of sorrow. He had a generous and noble idea of God in his mind ; and this he found did above all other considerations preserve his quiet ; and indeed that was so well established in him, that no ac- cidents, how sudden soever, were observed to discompose him : of which an eminent man of that profession gave me this instance : — In the year 1666, an opinion ran through the nation, thai, the end of the world would come that year. This, whether set on by astrologers, or advanced by thoso who thought it might have some re- lation to the number of the beast in the Reve- LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 87 lation, or promoted by men ot" ill designs to dis- turb the public peace, had spread mightily among the people : and Judge Hale going that year the western circuit, it happened, that as he was on the bench at the assizes, a most terrible storm fell out very unexpectedly, accompanied with such flashes of lightning and claps of thunder that the like will hardly fall out in an age. Upon which a whisper or a rumour run through the crowd, that now was the world to end, and the day of judgment to begin ; and at this there followed a general consternation in tlie whole assembly, and all men forgot the bu- .siness they were met about, and betook them- selves to their prayers. Tiiis, added to the hor- ror raised by the storm, looked very dismally, insomuch that my author, a man of no ordinary resolution and firmness of mind, confessed that it made a great impression on himself. But he told me, that he did observe the judge was not a whit affected, and was going on with the bu- siness of the court in his ordinary manner ; from which he made this conclusion, that his thoughts were so well tlxed, that he believed, if the world had been really to end, it would have given him no considerable disturbance. But I shall now conclude all that I shall say concerning him, with what one of the greatest men of the profession of the law sent me as an abstract of the character ho had made of him, upon long observation, and much converse with him. It was sent me, that from thence, with the other materials, I might make such a repre- 88 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. sentation of him to the world as he indeed de- served : but I resolved not to shred it out in parcels, but to set it down entirely as it was sent me ; hoping, that as the reader will be much delighted Avith it, so the noble person that sent it will not be offended with me for keeping it entire, and setting it in the best light I could. It begins abruptly, being designed to supply the defects of others, from whom I had earlier and more copious information. " He would never be brought to discourse of public matters in private conversation ; but in questions of law, when any young lawyer put a case to him, he was very communicative, espe- cially while he was at the bar : but when he came to the bench, he grew more reserved, and would never suffer his opinion in any case to be knov/n, till he was obliged to declare it judi- cially ; and he concealed his opinion in great cases so carefully, that the rest of the Judges in the same court could never perceive it. His reason was, because every judge ought to give sentence according to his own persuasion and conscience, and not to be swayed by any re- spect or deference to another man's opinion. And by this means it hath happened sometimes, that when all the barons of the exchequer had delivered their opinions, and agreed in their reasons and arguments ; yet he coming to speak last, and differing in judgment from them, hath expressed himself w4th so much weight and solidity, that the barons have immediately re- tracted their votes, and concurred with him. LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 89 He hath sat as a judge in all the courts of law, and in two of them as chief ; but still, wherever he sal, all business of consequence followed him ; and no man was content to sit down by the judgment of any other court, till the case was brought before him, to see whether he were of the same mind ; and his opinion being once known, men did readily acquiesce in it ; and it was very rarely seen that any man attempted to bring it about again ; and he that did so did it upon great disadvantages, and was always looked upon as a A^ery contentious person : so that what Cicero says of Brutus did very often happen to him, cfiam quos contra atatait (pquos placdtosqur (limisit. " Nor did men reverence his judgment and opinion in courts of law only ; but his authority was as great in courts of equity, and the same respect and submission was paid to him there too : and this appeared not only in his own court of equity in the exchequer chamber, but in the chancery too ; for thither he was often called to advise and assist the lord chancellor, or lord keeper for the time being : and if the cause were of difficult examination, or intricated and entangled with variety of settlements, no man ever showed a more clear and discerning judgment : if it were of great value, and great persons interested in it, no man ever showed greater courage and intejrrity in laying aside all respect of persons. When he came to deliver his opinion, he always put his discourse into such a method, that one part of it gave light to 90 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. the Other ; and where the proceedings of chan- cery might prore inconvenient to the subject, he never spared to observe and reprove them : and from his observations and discourses, the chancery hath taken occasion to estabhsh many of those rules by which it governs itself at this day. " He did look upon equity as a part of the common law, and one of the grounds of it ; and, therefore, as near as he could, he did always reduce it to certain rules and principles, that men might study it as a science, and not think the administration of it had any thing arbitrary in it. Thus eminent was this man in every station ; and into what court soever he was called, he quickly made it appear that he de- served the chief seat there. " As great a lawyer as he was, he would never suffer the strictness of law to prevail against conscience : as great a chancellor as he was, he would make use of all the niceties and subtleties in law, when it tended to support right and equit3^ But nothing was more admirable in him than his patience. He did not affect the reputation of quickness and despatch, by a hasty and captious hearing of the counsel : he would bear with the meanest, and gave every man his full scope, thinking it much better to lose time than patience. In summing up of an evidence to a jury, he would always require the bar to interrupt him if he mistook ; and to put him in mind of it, if he forgot the least circumstance. Some judges have been disturbed at this, as a LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 9.1 rudeness, which he always looked upon as a service and resj)ect done to liim. " His whole life was nothing else but a con- tinual course of labour and industry ; and when he could borrow any lime from the public ser- vice, it was wholly employed either in philoso- phical or divine meditations ; and even that was a public service too, as it hath proved ; for they have occasioned his writing of such trea- tises as are become the choicest entertainment of wise and good men ; and the world hath rea- son to wish that more of them were printed. He that considers the active part of his life, and with what unwearied diligence and application of mind he despatched all men's business which came under his care, will wonder how he could find any time for contemplation. He that con- siders again the various studies he passed through, and the many collections and observa- tions he hath made, may as justly wonder how he could lind any time for action. But no man can wonder at the exemplary piety and innocence of such a life so spent as this was ; wherein as he was careful to avoid every idle word, so it is manifest he never spent an idle day. They who come far short of this great man will ))•> apt enough to think that this is a panegyric, which indeed is a history, and but a little part 'jf that history which was with groat truth to bo r«'lat<'d of him. Men who despair of attaining such perfection arc not willing to believe that .ny man else ever arrived at such a height. *' He was the ureatest lawyer of the ajre, and 92 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. might have had what practice he pleased : but though he did most conscientiously affect the labours of his profession, yet at the same time he despised the gain of it ; and of those profits, which he would allow himself to receive, he always set apart a tenth penny for the poor, which he ever dispensed with that secrecy, that they who were relieved seldom or never knew their benefactor. He took more pains to avoid the honours and preferments of the gown than others do to compass them. His modesty was beyond all example ; for where some men, who never attained to half his knowledge, have been puffed up with a high conceit of them- selves, and have affected all occasions of rais- ing their own esteem by depreciating other men; he, on the contrary, was the most obliging man that ever practised. If a young gentleman hap- pened to be retained to argue a point in law, where he was on the contrary side, he would very often mend the objections, when he came to repeat them, and always commend the gen- tleman, if there were room for it ; and one good word of his was of more advantage to a young man than all the favour of the court could be." CHAPTER VI. He was twice married : his first wife was Anne, daughter of Sir Henry Moore, of Faley, in Berkshire, grandchild to Sir Francis Moore, LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 93 sergeant at law: by her he had ten children ; the ("our tirst died young, the other six lived to be ail married; and he outlived them all except his eldest daughter and his youngest son. His eldest son, Robert, married Frances the daughter of Sir Francis Chock, of Avington in Berkshire ; and they both dying in a little time one after another, left five children ; two sons, Matthew and Gabriel ; and three daughters, Anne, Mary, and Frances : and by the judge's advice they both made him their executor ; so lie took his grandchildren into his own care, and among them he left his estate. His second son, Matthew, married Anne the daughter of Mr. Matthew Simmonds, of Hilsley in Gloucestershire, who died soon after, and left one son behind him, named Matthew. His third son, Thomas, married Rebekah the daughter of Christian Le Brune, a Dutch mer- chant, and died without issue. His fourth son, Edward, married Mary the daughter of Edmund Goodyere, Esq., of Hey- thorp in Oxfordshire. He had two sons and three daughters. His eldest daughter, Mary, was married to Edward Alderly of Innishannon, in the county of Cork, in Ireland ; who, dying, left her with two sons and three daughters : she was after- ward married to Edward Stephens, son to Ed- ward Stephens, Esq., of Cherington in Glouces- tcrsiiire. His youngest daughter, Elizabeth, was mar- ried to Edward Webb, Esq., barrister at law ; 94 LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. she died, leaving two children, a son and a daughter. His second wife was Anne the daughter of Mr. Joseph Bishop, of Faley in Berkshire, by whom he had no children. He gives her a great character in his will, as a most dutiful, faithful, and loving wife, and therefore trusted the breeding of his grandchildren to her care, and left her one of his executors ; to whom he joined Sir Robert Jenkinson and Mr. Gibbon. So much may suffice concerning those descend- ed from him. In after times, it is not to be doubted, but it will be reckoned no small honour to descend from him ; and this has made me more particu- lar in reckoning up his issue. I shall next give an account of the issues of his mind, his books, that are either printed, or remain in manuscript ; for the last of these, by his will, he has forbid- den the printing of any of them after his death, except such as he should give order for in his life : but he seems to have changed his mind afterward, and to have left it to the discretion of his executors which of them might be printed : for though he does not express that, yet he or- dered by a codicil, that if any book of his writ- ing, as well touching the common law, as other subjects, should be printed; that what should be given for the consideration of the copy, should be divided into ten shares, of which he appointed seven to go- among his servants, and three to those who had copied them out, and were to look after the impression. The reason, LIFE OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 95 as I liavc undorstood it, that made him so im- Avilliii