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THE GALLERY OF PORTRAITS: WITH MEMOIRS.

LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE-STREET.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,

Duke-Street, Lambeth.

PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME.

Page.

GUST. ADOLPHUS.

During the fourteenth, and the beginning of the fifteenth century, Sweden, lying under vassalage to the crown of Denmark, suffered the evils which commonly belong to that condition. Gustavus Vasa, after a series of romantic adventures, established the independence of his country, and was deservedly elected by the Swedish Diet, in 1523, to wear its crown. The same kingdom to which he gave a place among free states, his grandson, Gustavus Adolphus, raised from the obscurity of a petty northern power, to rule in Germany, and to be the terror of the Church of Rome.

The establishment of the Reformation was coeval with the independence of Sweden; and a fundamental law forbade any future sovereign to alter the national religion, or to admit Roman Catholics to offices of power and trust. For infringing this principle, Sigismond, by election King of Poland, the lineal successor of Gustavus Vasa, was set aside by the Diet, and the crown was given to his father's younger brother, Charles, Duke of Sudermania. Charles died, and was succeeded by his son Gustavus Adolphus, December 31, 1611; the high promise of whose youth induced the States to abridge the period of minority, and admit him at once to the exercise of regal power, though he had but just attained the age of seventeen, being born December 9, 1594.

He had been trained up in the knowledge likely to be serviceable to a king and a soldier. He spoke the Latin language, then a universal medium of communication, with uncommon energy and precision; he conversed fluently in French, Italian, and German; he had studied history, political science, mathematics, and military tactics; and commencing with the part of a musketeer, he had been made master, by practice, of all the details of a soldier's life. He was capable of very severe application to abstruse study, and is said to have passed whole nights in reading the military history of the ancients. He was of uncommon stature and strength, and his constitution was early inured to labour and endurance.

In 1620 Gustavus travelled incognito through the chief towns of Germany. At Berlin he formed acquaintance with Maria Eleonora, sister to the Elector of Brandenburg, whom he espoused at Stockholm in November of the same year. One daughter, the famous Christina, his successor, was the offspring of this marriage.

The shortest apology for this determination, which as a matter of policy was opposed by Oxenstiern, may be found in the substance of the king's answer to that minister's objections, as it is abridged by Schiller in his History of the Thirty Years' War. "If we wait for the enemy in Sweden, in losing a battle, all is lost: all, on the contrary, is gained if we obtain the first success in Germany. The sea is large, and we have extensive coasts to watch. Should the enemy's fleet escape us, or our own be beaten, it is not possible for us to prevent a landing. We must therefore use all our efforts for the preservation of Stralsund. So long as this harbour shall be in our power Ave shall maintain the honour of our flag in the Baltic, and shall be able to keep up a free intercourse with Germany. But in order to defend Stralsund we must not shut ourselves up in Sweden; but must pass over with an army into Pomerania. Speak to me then no more of a defensive war, by which we shall lose our most precious advantages. Sweden herself must not behold the standards of the enemy; and, if we are vanquished in Germany, it will still be time enough to have recourse to your plan."

The army which Gustavus carried into Germany consisted only of 15,000 men; but it was formidable from its bravery, its high discipline, and the reliance which the general and the troops felt upon each other. "All excesses," we quote from Schiller, "were punished in a severe manner; but blasphemy, theft, gaming, and duelling, met with a more severe chastisement. The Swedish articles of war prescribed moderation; there was not to be seen in the Swedish camp, even in the tent of the king, either gold or silver. The general's eye watched carefully over the manners of the soldiers, while it en-flamed their courage in battle. Every regiment must each morning and evening form itself in a circle round its chaplain, and, in the open air, address prayers to the Almighty. In all this the legislator himself served as a model. An unaffected and pure piety animated the courage of his great mind. Equally free from that gross incredulity which leaves without restraint the ferocious movements of the barbarian, and the grovelling bigotry of a Ferdinand, who abased himself in the dust before the Divinity, and yet disdainfully trampled on the necks of mankind, in the height of his good fortune, Gustavus was always a man and a Christian; amid all his devotion, the hero and the king. He supported all the hardships of war like the lowest soldier in his army; his mind was serene in the midst of the most furious battle; his genius pointed out the results to him beforehand; everywhere present, he forgot death which surrounded him, and he was always found where there was the greatest danger. His natural valour made him too often lose sight of what was due to the general, and this great king terminated his life as a common soldier. But the coward as well as the brave followed such a leader to victory, and not any of the heroical actions which his example had created ever escaped his penetrating eye. The glory of their sovereign inflamed the entire Swedish nation with a noble confidence; proud of his king, the peasant of Finland and Gothland joyfully gave up what his poverty could afford; the soldier willingly shed his blood; and that elevated sentiment which the genius of this single man gave to the nation survived him a considerable time."

Gustavus took a solemn farewell of the States of the kingdom, May 20, 1630, presenting to them his daughter Christina, as his heir and successor. Adverse winds delayed his departure, and it was not till the 24th of June that he reached the coast of Pomerania. He disembarked his army on the islands of Wollin and Usedom, at the mouth of the Oder, and having taken possession of the strong town of Stettin on the same river, established a sure footing on the continent, and secured his means of retreat and communication with Sweden. To this proceeding he gained a reluctant consent from the Duke of Pomerania, who, though wearied and disgusted with the ravages of the Imperial troops, was unwilling to commit himself in defence of that which still appeared the weaker cause. But having no force to prevent the hostile, if he refused to warrant the friendly, occupation of his country, he made a virtue of necessity, and allied himself closely with the Swede.

Gustavus's progress at first produced no uneasiness at Vienna: the courtiers called him the snow-king, and said in derision that he would melt in his progress southward. But in the first campaign he nearly cleared Pomerania of the Imperialists; and he was strengthened by the accession of the Duke of Mecklenburg, who, having been despoiled of his territories in favour of Wallenstein, now openly raised troops in support of the King of Sweden. As winter approached, the Imperialists negotiated for a suspension of arms; but Gustavus replied, "The Swedes are soldiers in winter as well as summer, and are not disposed to make the peaceable inhabitants of the country support any longer than necessary the evils of war. The Imperialists may do as they choose, but the Swedes do not intend to remain inactive."

Meanwhile he met with cold support from the Protestant princes, in whose cause he had taken arms. The chief of these was the Elector of Saxony, who felt a jealousy, not unnatural, of the power and the ultimate views of the King of Sweden, and was himself ambitious to play the first part among the Protestants of Germany. Seeking to act independently, and to hold the balance between Sweden and Austria, he invited the Protestant States to a conference at Leipsic, February 6, 1613, at which it was determined to demand from the Emperor the redress of grievances, and to levy an army of 40,000 men, to give weight to their remonstrances. On the 13th of January, Gustavus had concluded an alliance with France, by the terms of which he was to maintain in Germany 30,000 men, France furnishing a subsidy of 400,000 dollars yearly, to use his best endeavours to reinstate those princes who had been expelled from their dominions by the Emperor, or the Catholic League, and to restore the empire to the condition in which it existed at the commencement of the war. Richelieu tried to bring the princes who had joined in the convention of Leipsic to accede to this alliance, but with very partial success. A few promised to support the Swedes, when opportunity should favour; but the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg kept aloof. During these negotiations Gustavus made progress in Brandenburg. The memorable siege and destruction of Magdeburg, May 10, by Tilly, for a time cast a gloom over the Protestant cause. Gustavus has been censured, both as a man and a soldier, for suffering that well-deserving and important place to fall without risking a battle in its behalf. His defence rests upon the interposed delays, and the insincerity of the Electors, which involved him in the risk of total destruction if he advanced thus far without having his retreat secured. But even this signal misfortune proved finally serviceable to the Protestant cause. It induced Gustavus to adopt a different tone with his brother-in-law of Brandenburg, who, finding no alternative but a real union or an open rupture with Sweden, wisely chose the former. The pride of success led the Imperial generals into acts of insolence, which induced the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, first of the German princes, to conclude a close and hearty alliance with Sweden, and left the Elector of Saxony no choice between entire dependence on the already exasperated Emperor, and an effective support of the only power that could protect him. Accordingly he formed a junction with the Swedes, and the united forces joined battle with Tilly not far from Leipsic, September 7, 1631. The opposing armies were nearly equal in strength. The stress of the conflict fell on the right wing of the Swedes, where the King commanded in person. The fiery Pappenheim led seven impetuous charges of the whole Austrian cavalry against the Swedish battalions without success, and, seven times repulsed, abandoned the field with great loss. The Saxons on the left wing were broken by Tilly. But the day was restored by a decisive movement of the Swedish right wing upon Tilly's flank, and the Imperialists dispersed in utter confusion. Leipsic, Merseburg, and Halle speedily fell into the victor's hands; and no obstacle existed to check his advance even to the heart of the Emperor's hereditary dominions. This was a tempting prospect to an ambitious man: but it would have abandoned Germany to Tilly, who was already occupied in raising a fresh army; and the King of Sweden determined to march towards Franconia and the Rhine, to encourage by his presence the Protestants who wavered, and to cut the sinews of the Catholic League, by occupying the territories, and diverting the revenues of its princes. Bohemia lay open to the Elector of Saxony, and he left it to that prince to divert the Emperor's attention, by carrying the war into that country.

From Leipsic, Gustavus pursued his triumphant way to the southward. The rich bishopric of Wurtzburg fell into his hands, almost without resistance. Nuremburg placed itself under his protection. The nobility and citizens of Franconia declared in his favour as soon as they were relieved from the presence of the Imperial troops, and when his drum beat for recruits, crowds flocked to the Swedish standards. He pursued his course along the Maine to Frankfort, which opened its gates, and received a Swedish garrison; and being strengthened by the junction of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, with 10,000 men, he crossed the Rhine, and, after a short siege, became master of Mentz by capitulation, December 13, 1631. There he gave his troops a few weeks' repose, being himself busily engaged in diplomatic labours. Early in the following year he completed the conquest of the Palatinate, and threatened to carry the war into Alsace and Lorraine.

The advance of Tilly recalled the King of Sweden into Franconia, at the head of 40,000 men. Tilly then retreated into Bavaria, closely followed by the enemy, who passed the Danube at Donawerth, forced the passage of the Lech, and carried the war into the yet uninjured plains of Bavaria. The passage of this river in the face of the enemy, April 5, is regarded as one of the King of Sweden's most remarkable exploits. His old antagonist Tilly received a mortal wound on this day. Munich, the capital, and the greater part of the Electorate, yielded without resistance. The Emperor was now reduced to the greatest difficulties. Bohemia was overrun by the Saxons, the Austrian dominions lay open to invasion from Bavaria, Tilly was dead, the Duke of Bavaria discouraged by his reverses, and inclined to purchase peace by consenting to a neutrality. There was but one man capable by the charm of his name and the power of his talents to compete with Gustavus, and he was Wallenstein. In his retirement that wildly ambitious man had long been scheming to bring his master to such a degree of abasement as should enable him to dictate his own terms of reconciliation and assistance; and the time was come when the Emperor saw himself obliged to consent to demands which almost superseded his own authority, and invested his dangerous subject with more than Imperial power. For this event Wallenstein's plans had long been maturing: a powerful army started up at once at his command, and when it suited his secret purposes to act, Bohemia was cleared of the Saxons more quickly than it had been conquered by them. He then formed a junction with the Duke of Bavaria, and at the head of 60,000 men advanced against Gustavus, who, not having above 18,000 or 20,000 men with him, entrenched himself strongly under the walls of Nuremburg. Wallenstein took up a strong position against him, and the two generals, each hoping to exhaust the other by scarcity of provisions, remained inactive till August 21, when Gustavus, having drawn together his scattered forces, made a desperate and fruitless attempt to carry the Imperial lines. Frustrated in this, he returned to his encampment, which he quitted finally, September 8, and marched into Bavaria.

Wallenstein followed his example on the 12th, and retired without any hostile attempt on Nuremburg. He had determined to fix his winter quarters in Saxony, hoping by the terror of his arms to detach the Elector from the Swedish alliance; and had already advanced beyond Leipsic, on his march against Dresden, when he was recalled by the rapid approach of the King of Sweden. Gustavus arrived at Nuremburg November 1, and entrenched himself there to wait for reinforcements which he expected. Wallenstein, in the belief that his adversary would be in no hurry to quit his strong position, proceeded to canton his troops near Merseburg, in such a manner that they might easily be called into action at the shortest notice, and detached Pappenheim with a large division of the army upon distant service. As soon as Gustavus heard of the latter movement, he marched in haste to attack the diminished enemy, and Wallenstein, though with inferior troops, was not slow to meet him. The King of Sweden's last victory was gained November 6, 1632, in the plain of Lutzen. Suffering from a recent wound, he did not wear armour, and early in the day, as he mingled in the front of the battle with his usual ardour, his left arm was broken by a musket-ball. As he retreated from the press he received another bullet in the back, and fell. His body was stripped by the Imperialists, a furious contest took place for the possession of it, and it was soon buried under a heap of slain. The Duke of Weimar took the chief command, and completed the victory.

The invention of the art of taking impressions on paper from an engraved plate is, on the authority of Vasari, usually ascribed to Tommaso Finiguerra, a celebrated enameller and chaser, of Florence, who, having occasion to make a sulphur cast from a piece of plate in 1460, observed that the charcoal dust and dirt which had collected in the engraved lines of the metal were brought off upon the sulphur, so as to present a counterpart of his work. Struck by the appearance, he tried to produce a similar effect by passing moistened paper over the plate, under pressure from a roller; and the experiment succeeded. This is a natural and a probable account; from the earliest antiquity the graver has been employed in embellishing armour, vessels of the precious metals, and other valuable articles of use and ornament; and it is certain that the earliest Italian engravers were, by profession, workers in gold and silver. It is strange indeed that so obvious an extension of the uses of engraving should not have been observed sooner; but all experience teaches us that a very important discovery may long lie very near the surface, before it meets with an observer sufficiently clear-sighted or fortunate to bring it to light. The Germans, however, contest priority of invention in this art with the Italians. The matter is of no great importance, even to the national fame of the two lands. Those prints which date before Albert Durer in the one, and before Marc Antonio in the other, possess little value either for their design or their execution, however precious they may be to collectors for their rarity, or to antiquaries and artists as historical records of the art.

Marc Antonio Raimondi was born at Bologna, about the year 1488: the dates of his birth and death are not mentioned by Vasari, who is the sole original authority for the private history of this artist. He learnt the art of design from Francesco Francia, or Raibolini, after whom he has sometimes been denominated Marc Antonio di Francia: his first instructor in the use of the graver is said to have been a goldsmith. And as Hogarth set out on his career of art by ornamenting tankards and shop-bills, so Marc Antonio at first gained his livelihood as a jeweller's workman. The first of his copper-plates which bears a date represents the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and was engraved in 1505; but he is said to have executed others before it, among which we find one only, the Four Horsemen, mentioned by name.

Footnote 1:

Heinekin says 1502, by mistake. The print of Apollo and Hyacinth bears also the date of 1505.

Induced by the desire of improvement in his art, he took a journey to Venice. Here, for the first time, he saw Albert Durer's engravings on wood; which he admired so highly, both for correctness of outline and accuracy of workmanship, that he bought the series of thirty-six pieces, representing the passion of our Saviour, at a price which very nearly exhausted his slender purse. These wood-cuts he copied upon copper, with so much success that they were mistaken for the originals; and Vasari says that Albert Durer complained in great anger to the Venetian senate of the injury thus done to him, and obtained no other redress than an order that Antonio should abstain from imitating his signature. The Baron Heineken, on the contrary, asserts that the existing copies of these prints do not bear the German artist's mark, and that no one has seen copies which do bear it; and he believes the story, if founded on fact, to refer to a series of prints representing the life of the Virgin Mary, in seventeen prints, which are exactly copied from Durer, even to his cipher.

From Venice Marc Antonio went to Rome, where, to his inestimable benefit, he became acquainted with Raphael, who perceived and assisted his talents, certainly by advice, and, some say, even by manual help. The outlines of Antonio's plates after Raphael have been said to be executed by the painter himself: but this is solely conjecture; and it appears improbable that, in an art depending so much upon manual dexterity, the more unpractised hand should be the superior in precision and delicacy. But that Raphael was very much pleased with the justice which Antonio rendered to his designs is certain. He sent to Albert Durer copies of the Bolognese engraver's works; and Durer, however jealous he might be, and however justly displeased at past occurrences, could not deny his rival's merit, and acknowledged the courtesy by sending impressions of his own works in return. The honour of Raphael's patronage, the admirable choice of subjects afforded by his pictures, and the real benefit which any lover and cultivator of art must have derived from his society, all combined to raise Antonio's fame; and many pupils came to study under him, among whom Marco di Ravenna, Agostino di Musis, and Giulio Bonasoni, whose plates are highly valued by collectors, may be named as most eminent.

When Rome was plundered by the Spaniards, in 1520, Marc Antonio lost all his property. He returned to Bologna after this misfortune, and was still leading a retired life there in 1539: the battle of Centaurs and Lapithae bears date in that year, and is the last certain memorial of him. The combat of Hector and Achilles, dated in 1546, though attributed to Marc Antonio, is considered by the Baron Heineken to be at least doubtful. Malvasia relates that a Roman nobleman, for whom Antonio had engraved a print of the Massacre of Innocents, with an undertaking never to repeat the subject, caused the artist to be assassinated for re-engraving it. But it casts a doubt on the truth of this story, that it is not even alluded to by Vasari.

"His engravings are often defective in point of harmony, and the skilful management of the light and shadow, which gives them an unfinished and sometimes disgustful appearance to the common eye. On the other hand, a graceful flow of outline, joined with purity and correctness of drawing in its greatest latitude, are found in the best works of this master; but these beauties rarely attract the general notice without the assistance of neatness, or what is more properly called high finishing, especially in the present day . The eye, long accustomed to neatness and delicacy of finishing, especially where the judgment is not capable of distinguishing the greater essentials of the art, will necessarily consider that neatness to be the criterion of excellency. Hence it is that the works of the old masters are fallen into such general disrepute: their beauties are overlooked, and their faults are viewed through a magnifying medium. And it is perhaps because Marc Antonio stands the first among the old masters, that he has received a greater share of censure than the rest.

"The excellency of this master consists in the correctness of his drawing, the character of his heads, and the pure idea his works convey of the simplicity and elegance of the originals they are taken from: and they may be considered as admirable drawings, not highly finished indeed, but sufficiently so to preserve the design and spirit of the masters from whom he worked.

"That persons possessed of little judgment in the arts should not discover the merits of this engraver, cannot surprise us; but that artists themselves, and experienced collectors, should join in the common censure, is much more extraordinary. In these instances, we may conclude, he has been too hastily, as he has certainly been unjustly, condemned, without a proper examination of his works in their native state. Such as generally appear at sales, and too many of those in the hands of collectors, are either worn-out impressions, or what is still worse, retouched ones. In these the primitive beauty is entirely lost. Let any one, for instance, examine the common impressions of that admirable engraving of this master, representing the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, from Baccio Bandinelli, which is the largest of all his prints, and he will find the outlines darkened with black strokes upon the lights, and the demitints upon the flesh increased, so as nearly to equal the deep shadows; by which means all the breadths of light are destroyed, and cut into a variety of disagreeable divisions, which produce a disgustful and inharmonious effect. But in a fine impression of the same plate, there are none of these disagreeable crudities to be found; the shadows are judiciously softened and blended into the lights, and harmonized with each other; the outlines are neat and correct; and the characters of the heads admirably well expressed. In short, he would scarcely believe it possible that the same plate should furnish impressions, so beautiful in one state, and so truly execrable in the other. But the wonder ceases, if he be told that the plate, passing through a variety of hands, has been frequently retouched, and that by careless and unskilful men. We may further add, that as the name of Marc Antonio stands high among the curious collectors, the ignorant are too frequently imposed upon by bad copies, or spurious productions."

A very excellent and extensive collection of the engravings of Marc Antonio, and of his pupils, exists in the British Museum, which, with the exception of a few of the extremely rare prints, presents a better assemblage than most public or private cabinets can boast of, whether as to number, beauty of impression, or condition.

COKE.

Edward Coke, the only son of Robert Coke, of Mileham, in the county of Norfolk, and Winifred, daughter and one of the heirs of William Knightley, of Morgrave-Knightley, in the same county, was born at Mileham, February 1, 1551. He was descended, both by his father's and his mother's side, from ancient and opulent families. His father, who was a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, died in the year 1561, when Edward Coke was ten years old. Before that event he had been sent to the Free Grammar School at Norwich, whence, in September, 1567, he removed to Cambridge, and was admitted as a fellow commoner at Trinity College. After having spent three years at the University he returned into Norfolk for a few months, and then went to London to commence his legal education. According to the practice of that time, he took the first step of his legal course by becoming a member of Clifford's Inn, a house of Chancery, or inferior inn, dependent upon the Inner Temple, and was admitted into the latter society, April 24, 1572. He was called to the bar in Easter Term, 1578. During the continuance of his studies in the Inner Temple, he is said to have greatly distinguished himself in the exercises called mootings and readings, which constituted a necessary part of the education of an advocate in former times, and which were carried on with a degree of interest and excitement almost incredible to those who at the present day peruse the details of these grotesque and antiquated proceedings.

In the course of the year after his call to the bar, the society of the Inner Temple appointed him reader at Lyon's Inn; and the learning displayed by him, in the conduct of the exercises at which he presided in this capacity, raised for him a high reputation as a lawyer, and opened the way to that extensive practice at the bar, which he acquired with a degree of rapidity almost without a parallel in the history of the profession. In the first term after he was called to the bar he conducted an argument of much nicety and importance, which is reported by the name of Lord Cromwell's Case; "And this," he says, in his own report of it , "was the first cause that the author of this book moved in the King's Bench." Less than three years afterwards he was associated with Popham, the Solicitor General, in arguing before the Chancellor and the twelve judges the important case in which was laid down the celebrated doctrine in the law of real property, well known as the 'Rule in Shelley's Case.' From that period until he became Solicitor General in 1592, his practice was enormous: it appears from the Reports of that time that there was scarcely a single motion or argument before the court of King's Bench in which he was not engaged. Professional honours were the legitimate consequence of this large business in the courts; in 1586 he was chosen Recorder of Norwich, and four years afterwards was made a bencher of the Inner Temple. In January, 1592, on the resignation of Serjeant Fleetwood, he was elected Recorder of London; but, in the following June, on being appointed Solicitor General, he resigned that office. In the same summer he became Reader of the Inner Temple, and selected the Statute of Uses for the subject of his readings. He says that he had composed seven readings for this occasion, and had delivered five of them to a large audience, consisting of not less than 160 members of the society, when the appearance of the plague in the Middle Temple, which raged with great violence in the autumn of that year, compelled him to discontinue them, and to leave London abruptly for his house at Huntingfield in Suffolk. Such was the honour and respect in which he was held by the profession, that on this occasion he was accompanied on his journey, as far as Romford, by a procession composed of nine benchers and forty other members of the Inner Temple. In March, 1594, he was appointed Attorney General, and, as the office of Solicitor continued vacant until the close of the following year, the duties and labours of both offices during that interval devolved upon him.

At this period originated the animosity between Coke and Bacon, which prevailed with little intermission during the life of the latter. As soon as the office of Attorney General became vacant, in consequence of the removal of Sir Thomas Egerton, the Earl of Essex used his most strenuous efforts to induce the Queen to bestow that place upon Bacon, instead of promoting Sir Edward Coke from the inferior office of Solicitor General. The letters of Bacon, written to Essex and others, with relation to this intrigue, abound with sarcastic and contemptuous expressions respecting Coke, whose high reputation and great experience certainly marked him out as fitter for the office than his rival, whose practice at the bar was never extensive, and who was then scarcely known in the courts. After Coke had obtained the appointment of Attorney General, Bacon and his friends charged him first with intriguing to keep the emoluments of both offices in his own hands, and afterwards with recommending Serjeant Fleming for the vacant solicitorship and encouraging the antipathies and prejudices of the Queen against Bacon. There is, however, no evidence to show that these imputations were true; and if Coke really urged the appointment of Fleming, it might well be with the view of obtaining a more experienced and efficient coadjutor than Bacon.

In truth, the state services imposed upon the Attorney General at this time were extremely laborious. The severity of the laws recently introduced against Roman Catholics had occasioned a succession of plots by foreign adventurers against the person of the Queen, more or less dangerous, the investigation of which was necessarily committed to the Attorney General. The treasons of Lopez, the Queen's physician, of Patrick Cullen, and of Williams and Yorke, all occurred about this period; and the business of constant examination at the Tower, in addition to his Star Chamber duties and his undiminished practice in the common-law courts, must have imposed a weight of labour and responsibility upon Coke, which no mind of ordinary activity and energy could have sustained. Whole volumes of examinations in these cases of treason, taken by himself and written with his own hand, are still preserved at the State Paper Office, and sufficiently attest his zeal and assiduity in the service.

In February, 1593, Coke, being at that time Solicitor General, was elected a member of parliament for his native county of Norfolk. In his own memorandum of this circumstance he says, that the election was "unanimous, free, and spontaneous, without any canvassing or solicitation on his part." At the meeting of parliament he was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons.

As the advocate of the crown on trials for State offences, he displayed a degree of intemperance and asperity shocking to the feelings of readers, who are familiar only with the more civilized character of criminal proceedings at the present day. His vulgar vituperation of Raleigh, and his more measured sarcasm towards Essex, were extremely offensive even to his contemporaries, and were remembered against him with malicious eagerness on his own reverse of fortune. "In your pleadings," says Bacon to him on the eve of his discharge from the office of Lord Chief Justice, "you were wont to insult over misery, and to inveigh bitterly at the persons; which bred you many enemies, whose poison yet swelleth, and the effects now appear."

With the trials of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot in 1606, the career of Sir Edward Coke as an advocate closed. In the month of June in that year he received his appointment as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He retained this situation upwards of seven years; and, in the discharge of the common judicial duties at this period, his profound learning and unwearied industry procured him the highest reputation. At this time too, though he has sometimes been reproached for a haughty and unconciliating deportment on the bench, the bitterness of temper which he had displayed at the bar appears to have been suppressed or softened; and in several constitutional questions of the highest importance which occurred while he was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and in which he resolutely opposed the views of the king, especially in the conflicts between the ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the courts of common law, and in his resistance to the encroachment of prerogative on the subject of royal proclamations, he displayed great integrity and independence. With a view to corrupt his uncompromising disposition, his crafty and ambitious rival, Sir Francis Bacon, who was then Solicitor General, suggested his promotion to the Chief Justiceship of the King's Bench; and accordingly he received his patent for that office in October, 1613, and a few days afterwards took his seat at the board as a Privy Councillor. In the following year he was elected High Steward of the University of Cambridge.

The project of making the Chief Justice "turn obsequious" by his advancement, which was no doubt entertained by the court, and was expressly avowed by Bacon, altogether failed. In the case of Peacham, who was prosecuted for treason in the year 1615, for having in his possession a sermon supposed to contain sedition, written by him, but never preached or published, Lord Coke expressed an opinion, in direct opposition to the wishes of the court, that the offence was not treason. His deportment at the trial of Somerset and the murderers of Sir Thomas Overbury, in the same year, though praised by Bacon in conducting the case as Attorney General, gave much displeasure to the king; and his independent conduct in the case of Commendams, which occurred in 1616, finally determined the court to remove him from his office. The transaction was this. A serjeant-at-law, in the discharge of his duty as an advocate in the Court of Common Pleas, was supposed to have used matter in his argument which tended to abridge, or at least to question, the royal prerogative; upon this the king required the judges to proceed no further in the case without his warrant. The twelve judges conferred upon this message, and resolved that in a common dispute between party and party, it was their duty to proceed notwithstanding the king's mandate. Upon this they were summoned to the council table, and personally reprimanded by the king; and all of them, excepting the Lord Chief Justice, acknowledged their error, and craved pardon for their offence upon their knees. Sir Edward Coke, on the contrary, boldly justified his opinion, contending that the king's command for staying the proceedings was a delay of justice, and consequently against the law, and contrary to the judges' oath. After much discussion, the Lords of the council proposed the following question to the judges:--"Whether in a case where the king believed his prerogative or interest concerned, and required the judges to attend him for advice, they ought not to stay proceedings till his Majesty had consulted them?" All the judges at once answered in the affirmative, except Coke, who only said "that, when the case happened, he would do his duty."

From causes, not very distinctly explained in the letters and histories of the day, but which are supposed to have been connected with an intrigue for the marriage of his daughter to Sir John Villiers, afterwards Viscount Purbeck, and brother to the celebrated Duke of Buckingham, Sir Edward Coke, though he never afterwards filled any judicial situation, was, at no long interval, restored to a certain degree of royal favour; and in September, 1617, he was reinstated as a member of the Privy Council. In the course of the next three years he was employed in several commissions of a public nature; and in the Parliament which assembled in 1620 he was returned as a Member for the Borough of Liskeard in Cornwall. In this Parliament he distinguished himself as one of the most able and zealous advocates of the liberal measures which were proposed; he declared himself a strenuous opponent of the pernicious monopolies by which at that period the freedom of trade was fettered, and took an animated part in that struggle between the prerogative pretensions of James and the freedom of debate, which ended in the celebrated resolution of the Commons, "That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birth-right and inheritance of the subjects of England." The consequence was, that he was arrested on one of those vague and senseless charges which prevailed in those evil days, and committed to the Tower, in December, 1621, where he remained a close prisoner until the month of August in the ensuing year. On this occasion, he was a second time formally dismissed from the Council-table, and was never afterwards restored to favour at Court.

The last entry in his note-book, written with almost as firm a hand as he wrote at the age of 40, records the following incident, which may possibly have been the cause of his death:--

"Memorandum. Die Jovis, the iii^ of May, 1632, riding in the morning in Stoke, between eight and nine of the clocke to take the ayre, my horse under me had a strange stumble backward, and fell upon me , where my head lighted nere to sharpe stubbes, and the heavy horse upon me. And yet, by the providence of Almighty God, though I was in the greatest danger, yet I had not the least hurt,--nay, no hurt at all. For Almighty God saith by his prophet David, 'The angel of the Lord tarieth round about them that feare him, and delivereth them.' Et nomen Domini benedictum, for it was his work!"

He died on the 3rd of September, in the following year, repeating with his last breath the words, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done." He was interred in the burying-place of the Coke family in the church of Titeshall, in Norfolk.

Lloyd, in his "State Worthies," gives the following account of Sir Edward Coke:--"His parts were admirable; he had a deep judgment, faithful memory, active fancy. And the jewel of his mind was put into a fair case,--a beautiful body with a comely countenance;--a case, which he did wipe and keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn, and being wont to say 'that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls.'"

The most celebrated of Sir Edward Coke's works is the treatise commonly known by the name of Coke upon Littleton, or the First Institute. It consists of a minute and laborious Commentary upon the text of Littleton's Tenures, in the course of which almost the whole learning of the common law, as it existed in his time, is embodied and explained. Ever since the time of Sir Edward Coke to the present day, this book has been considered as a work of the highest authority in the municipal law of England. The Second Institute contains Commentaries on several ancient statutes; the Third Institute is a Treatise on Criminal Law; and the Fourth Institute relates to the Jurisdiction of different Courts. Besides these works, Sir Edward Coke was the author of a Treatise on Copyholds, entitled "The Complete Copyholder," and of a "Reading on Fines." He also published a collection of Reports, which are still of great value to the profession; and at the time of their appearance formed an epoch in the history of the law. Sir Francis Bacon speaks of this produce of the industry and learning of his great rival in terms of high and deserved commendation; and justly ascribes to the Reports the praise of having preserved the vessel of the common law in a steady and consistent course; "For the law," says he, "by this time had been like a ship without ballast, for that the cases of modern experience are fled from those that are adjudged and ruled in former time."

GIBBON.

The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was born at Putney in Surrey, in May, 1737. He was the eldest son of Edward Gibbon, a gentleman of some fortune, and a strong attachment to Tory principles. His mother's name was Porten. But in his Memoirs, written at the close of his life, he betrays no strong sense of gratitude or affection towards either of his parents; while he acknowledges with abundant warmth the most important obligations to his aunt, Catharine Porten. To her lessons he ascribes his "invincible love for reading;" to her care he attributes the very preservation of his precarious life; and he designates her, in the calmness of distant reflection, as the true mother both of his body and his mind.

From a private school he was removed to Westminster; from Westminster to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was admitted as a gentleman-commoner, April 3, 1752. About this time his constitution, hitherto extremely feeble, acquired a sudden vigour, which never deserted him during the rest of his life. At Oxford he made absolutely no proficiency in any branch of knowledge, or any useful accomplishment. "To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother." Accordingly he exhausts the severity of his sarcasm, both upon the system which was there established, and upon the men who administered it, without honestly inquiring whether he had laboured to extract, even from an imperfect system, the modicum of advantage which it was capable of yielding. But his recollections of Oxford were embittered by his subsequent contest with some of the clergy, and the hostile treatment which he sustained at their hands; and the principles which he embraced in after life would have rendered him equally intolerant of any institution, standing on a religious foundation.

During his residence at Oxford, and at the usually unreflecting age of sixteen, he was converted to the Roman Catholic faith. He was first stirred to thought by the "bold criticism" of Middleton. He then "swallowed" the miracles of the Basils, the Chrysostoms, and other Fathers of the Church; and Bossuet achieved the conquest by the 'Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine,' and the 'History of the Variations.' And then he made his formal recantation before a Jesuit, named Baker, one of the Chaplains of the Sardinian Ambassador. In his retrospect upon this the most singular incident in the history of his mind, Gibbon might indeed profess to be proud of his change of opinion, as a sacrifice of interest to principle; but he probably conveys his habitual reflections more faithfully when he says, with his usual strength: "To my present feelings it seems incredible that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation."

He was immediately removed from Oxford, and placed under the care of a tutor at Lausanne. To a Swiss pastor, named Pavillard, was entrusted the delicate office of disentangling the mind of Gibbon from the intricacies of popery, and leading it back again into the pale of the Protestant Church. He succeeded: by seasonable arguments, and judicious admonitions, aided perhaps by the influence of a mild and benevolent character, he prevailed over the hasty caprice of a powerful intellect; and on Christmas-day, in 1754, Gibbon publicly renounced his adopted creed, and received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne. There is no reason to suspect the sincerity of this recantation, or to believe that he had yet fallen either into scepticism, or indifference.

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