MR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF CORE.

THE life of COKE is a desideratum in English literature, which the present volumes will not supply. A more wretched compilation we have never encountered, even when the hero was a popular character lately dead, whose life must be hurried into the market before smile new si.bject should attract the attention of the buyers. As a biographer, Mr. CUTHBERT W n.u.sm Jestx- SON has not a single requisite of art or nature. Ile has Lot pens. tration to perceive the circumstances which give their character to persons or events ; he wants the judument to diseritninate between the most important and the most trivial things: he has no 5:-Oti.Jrt of method, no sense even of the order of' time, but displaces chronc.- logical occurrences till his narrative is as confused as a dream. Something of value may be found in his volumes, because he has displayed a sort of drudge-like industry, and quotes largely enougls fiom valuable boils and documents not easily accessible: hut this is a very sorry return for the perusal of' eight or nine hundred pages, iur all that he really tells of value might be put into a

pamplilvt. •

The processes by which lie has swelled his volumes to their pre. sent bulk are various. One is, by mere unnecessary statements of subordinate particulars. Another, by the bookmaker's art of writing " roundabout." Of most of the contemporaries of COKE, whether legal, political, or curtly', Mr. Jon:ago:a favours us with sem kind of notice, w hilst COKE is kept waiting. Be- sides this, he enters into historical narratives of' almost every thing in which his hero wes or WaS not engaged. Com: had nothing to do with Queen Mauv's case, because she was eet allowed counsel; but there is an ace cunt of the trial, with the saga- cious remark, that if lawyers had been allowed to defeed her, CONE bad probably been employed. In the trial of Guy FAM ICES and his compeers, however, Ms was engaged ; so we heve a loeg accouut of the " gunpowder treason and plot." The great cannuon lawyer was elected a Member of Parliament ; upon which there is a dissertation on Parliaments : and when he was chosen Speaker, the Speekership runt iebee a t hone. But as even things of this kind would not suffice, Mr..1011N-iON intrudes his own Opinion upon all matters as they happen to arise. Queen ELI2A. BETH, King 3 AMES, CHARLES the First. OLIVER CROMWELL, President Haat/ell NW, MA the " bungling Judees" of the " Royal Martyr," are all discussed mid decided on by t his puerile-minded person, with a flippancy and twaddle alike disgusting and absurd. It may be alleged that the materials for a biography of COKE are scanty ; that of his private life we know little, and that his public life belongs to legal or Parliamentary history. The truth of this we admit as a reason for writing a short book, or none at all ; but as the office of biographer was not imposed upon Mr. JOHNSON, this is no excuse for two such bulky volumes of ill- flavoured olla podrat as he has put before us. Passing from the writer, let us uo to the subject. The author of Coke upon Littleton was born in 1550, of an ancient and wealthy family in Norfolk. At ten years of age, he was sent to the Gram- mar-school of Norwich; where Mr. JOHNSON says it " is pro., bable that he displayed great diligence and application." As COKE was always industrious' and those were the days of sharp flogging, it is probable that Im did. After remaining at school seven years, he entered at Trinity College, Cambridge ; but of his atudies no record is preserved. Our biographer, however, sports another probability—" that he probuhl y paid more attention to the study of Norman French and to the year-books, than to mathe- matics or classic lore." In 1572, COKE became a student of the Temple ; and was called to the bar in his twenty-seventh year. Of his studentship there is no account, nor much of his twenty years' practice at the bar ; during which he rose to the bead of his profession, and, according to BARRINGTON reporting a tradi- tion of the courts, gained as much as a modern Attorney-General,— a fact which might be true when BARRINGTON first beard it, though obviously improbable if we speak of the present day: but Mr. JOHNSON does not attend to these slight differences. In 1592, Costa was elected a Member of Parliament for Norfolk ; and in the same year he was appointed Attorney-General. This was ia his forty-second year. The next thirty-six years of his life are matter of notoriety or history. Every student of' the time is ac- quainted with his squabbles with his second wife—his indecent coarseness on the persecution of RALEIGH, and his appcarance in the different state trials of the period—his sturdy resistance to the Court as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and the King's Bench—and, when dismissed from his judgeship by an arbitrary exercise of power, the good service he rendered to the cause of liberty in the House of Commons ; and we know not that Mr. JOHNSON has added any thing of consequence to our general knowledge, though he has brought together a good many details. Uader the four phases we have just enumerated, it may be

worth while to' &nee at the character of Come Of his domestic character, whilst plodding his way to celebrity, there is no account.

Like most great lawyers, his time was so fully occupied that he bad no leisure either for the enjoyments of home or society. We know little more of his first wife than that he married her young,

that she bore him many children, and that COKE always spoke

well of her after her death. His second marriage was one of am- bition, and furnishes another warning against such matches. The lady, widow of Sir W teetem 11 erroe, was young, gay, high-

spirited, and courtly ; COKE middle-aged, avaricious, proud, and peculiar, with the confirmed habits of a hard-working lawyer,

who went to bed at nine o'clock, rose at three, and spent all his

waking hours in study or business. In hie courtship he had BACON for a rival, (as on so many other occasions,) but carried it against his more accomplished opponent by the interest of the CECIL family. The object of both suitors was not the lady, but ter wealth and court interest.

The disputes of the ill-matched pair began early ; money mat- ters being their origin. Lady Herroet would never take the name

of COKE; for she alleged that the great lawyer made use of his

craft and had cheated her in the settlements. Very often they resided separately, his wife forbidding him her house. They dif-

fered in the management and marriage of their children; and their quarrels were so public as to afford a topic of jest to scandal- mongers and a considerable source of annoyance to COKE. That it affected his " peace and happiness," as Mr. JOHNSON Slip, we do not believe, further than bad bargains operate in this direction. The marriage was an affair of barter, in which COKE was bit.

As a Crown lawyer—and, in his barristerian career, be has descended to posterity in no other character—COKE was not a whit better than any of that very bad band ; and in manner perhaps worse, for he had a crouching insolence about him which was strongly marked like all his other qualities. There seems some- thing vitiating in a pleader's occupation. As JUNIUS remarks, " the indiscriminate defence of right and wrong contracts the understanding while it corrupts the heart." Separating himself from the cause in which he is retained, the counsel appears to look only to a verdict, and to postpone justice to his own suc- cess. This COKE most assuredly did. His coarseness and bru- tality were the vices of his age; but, having exercised them upon RALEIGH, and being satirized by SHAKSPEARE, they have been more marked by posterity. There is reason, however, to think that these vices were less the fault of the man than of his profession. When he mounted the judgment-seat, he threw off the interested one-sidedness of the advocate and the servility of the Crown lawyer. Indeed, all things considered, he stands un- equalled as a judge. It is easy now-a-days to do justice, for the clamour of the populace or the black looks of the great are the worst that can follow. But under the STUARTS, all the private influence of the Court and Government wore brought to bear upon the judge to decide in favour of the Crown ; he was badgered by the Crown counsel, the Chancellor, and Privy Council ; and, hold- in e his Lillie° at pleasure, could be dismissed as a last punishment —which actually happened to COKE. It were ungracious to in- quire how far he was stimulated to independence by the pride of art—by the power of baffling, by hie vast legal skill, Councils and Commissioners, and more than all, his hated rival Bee" whom be seems at once to have envied and despised. It may, however, be assumed, that had he been a less profound lawyer, he would have been a more complying judge. There are, doubtless, in- stances of profligate persons who will do any thing ; but direct sins against knowledge are not frequent. In his Parliamentary career, under CHARLES the First, Caste was undoubtedly of great advantage to the cause of freedom, by his boldness, his readiness, his business skill, his powers of management, and by his profound and astonishing learn- ing. This weapon not only confuted the Court, but encouraged the more scrupulous amongst his own party. Many per- haps might have paused in their career of opposition had they Supposed they were standing upon abstract principles. But COKE made it out an affair of inheritance. He showed—and, whether right or wrong, there was nobody to confute him—that, in popular phrase, they " had the law on their side." As a lawyer, universal consent places him, longo intervallo, at the bead of his class. For the attainment of this eminence he was indebted to an unwearied industry and an extraordinary acumen; but the quality, we conceive, which separates him from all his tribe, is the largeness and comprehension of his mind. Other lawyers are content to apply principles to cases : Coes from a case would deduce a principle, and travel with it too as far as it went, when it pleased him.

His style has been denounced as barbarous, and his manner pedantic. This may be true, but is hardly the whole truth. We have little or no acquaintance with his purely professional writings, but in his other productions mere defects of mode seem far outba- lanced by higher excellences. His meaning is always clear; his matter always weighty ; a marked and striking character is stamped upon what he says; there is great boldness and strength in his figures, and his periods are often pregnant with sense. His jocularity is not very refined, and is rather grotesque than facetious, but it answered its purpose; his aptness and acuteness are tery extraordinary ; and even his pedantic quotations—the wearying vice of his age—are sometimes introduced with a telling effect.

COKE was a remarkable instance of the worldly success which krfect mastery in oae pursuit eventually produce, even though the world be disregarded. Whilst *greater man. BACON. spent his life in various studies, or wasted his time and debased himself by engaging ill the meanest intrigues, COKE was steadily plodding on in his profession, without troubling himself about pre- ferment. Yet he distanced his rival in the race, under ELIZA- BETH and JAMES too, (for BACON only attained the Chancellorship by dint of the lowest arts and subserviency, which he could only have kept by similar means, had he avoided the corruption which caused his downfal); and was in that age an anomaly of' advance- ment, as he says himself, " sine preee sine pretio." What is yet rarer for the period, he had the courage to iesist the Court, and the power to defy it. In the few extracts we can take from this work, we shall not confine ourselves to matter relating to COKE ; though we will let him exhibit himself in a few specimens. Here is a strange and quaint but pithy description of one of the Gunpowder not men.

COKE ON GARNET.

He is by country an Englishman, by birth a gentleman, by elm: ition scholar ; afterwards a cot-teeter of the common taw print with Mr. Totile the minter, mud now is to be corrected by the law. Ile huh many gif:s and en- dowments of nature : by act learned ; agood linguist ; and by ;liadession a Jesuit and a superior. Indee I, he is superior to all Ids predecessors in devilish. treason ; a liortor of Jesuits ; that is, a dector of five Ds—as dis-iii elatien, deposing of priuces, disposing a kingdaius, dauuting and detertioe; f sub- jects, and destructiom

QUALIFICATIONS FOK A '7•IEMCEIR OF FARLIAMF.NT.

" Every Member of the House, being a counsellor, should have three proper- ties of the elephant,--I. That be hath no gall ; 2. That he is iu; L.. an.1 cannot bow ; :3. That he is of a most ripe and perfect memery. That he Should be without malice, rancour, heat. sod envy ; not untied Ii en tio. right either by fear, ieward, or favour ; and that of a perfect memo! y, remeinli 'ring perils past he might prevent dangers to come." Coke also advised the M milers of Parliament to adopt another property of the elephant : ere and go in companies. Saciable creatures." he adds, " that go hi dock* or herds, are not hut tful, as deer, sheep, Rec., but beasts that walk auk' y or singu-

larly, as bears, foxes, etc. are hurtful. These properties ought every Pariia- ment man to have."

Considering the age, one of the most remarkable things about the great lawyer was his bold disregard for the Peers and the Crown, against whom he spoke and acted with a freedom that many of our shallow pretenders would shrink from. le this he often did good service, especially on the great Petition f Right. The Lords agreed to the petition, but with a cauiteou, amend- meat, reserving " a due reeard to leave eut:re that sovereiga power wherewith your Majesty is trusted for the protectien, saiety, and happiness of your people:. On which amendment of Coe Leeds, COKE held forth thus.

" This turtle all about again. Look into all the petitions of fermer times; they never petitioned wlierem there n-.N a saving of the King's sae. re:pity.

I know that iwerogative is a put of • : : but " seveteign powee" is I. I Par- liamentary word. In my rninim, eas Cliarta at ii :he sta- tutes, for they me abri liee. witleye soverei..m eiver. And

should we now add it, vie sued wee..., ia'ion of law are: then the building must needs f T e yield init..; Mee, iiatta is such a fellew, th it he will have s..e.•„ 1 weeder v.:A sovei, was out

in Magna Chart:4 or in the c Neat. " If we grant this by im;.bc..tiee, seeeteign power ah .:11 laws. Power, in law, is takea fat a he sherin: a Il Ake the

power of the comity ; si liat it :!.. .• . onlyknusv. It repugnant to our petition, that is, a petit' einunded ou acts ot. Puri: Otte predecessors would never endure a r sac', no more than the Lii.e• of old could endure for the Church sale, Dci it Eceb,she. We inus•in admit of it, and to qualify it is impiersible. Let us hold our privleges ace..r■img to the law ; that power that is above this is not tit for the King to have it disputeee' further."

Klan aaartE ox THE a ToRTs.

I. That he be sequestered the Council-Chamber until his Majesty'a pleasure be further known. 2. That be forbear to rid: I.is summer circuit us Jastice of Assize. 3. That during the vacation, while he lard time to live pri oat and dispose himself at home, he take into consideratioa and review 11,.. hook of Reparts, wherein, as his Majesty is informed, be many extravagant and exorbi- tant opinions set down and published for p lamnise and good law.

And if in reviewing and reading theteef, he find any thing fit t • lee altered

and amended, the co:lectern is left to hie discretion. Ationipt things, the King was not well pleased with the title of tbe bo,.1t wherein ..e entitled himself Lord Chief Justice of England. nhereas he Mild eliallen.4, in, more than Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Awl having coracied what in his discretiou he found meet in these Reports, hia Majesty's pleasure uses, that he should Ming the same privately before himself, that he might consider theta, as in his princely judgment should le futrad exp,dieut.

FEC,; OF yoltE.

The fees usually paid to a bearister wine touch smaller than they are now. Even in 1636, at the great trial of the seven biehops, the highest fees wire only twenty pounds, and all the counsela fees together did Out amount twa hum.

di-yd amid fifty. In 1476, the fees sewn to have been very small indeed, if we

may credit an entry in the Churchwarden's hook of St. Margaret's, Westmin- ster, by which it appears that they paid one Mr. Heger F■!pott, leorne,I in the law, for his counsel, three shillings cud eight pence, with four pence tot his dinner LAW STCPENFS IN THE OLDEN Tivtr.

In Id. time, the Cants seldom sat later than noon. The business of a barrister having the most extensive mactice would then leave hint aa pie space for a very careful autl extended cuutse of study. The cases, iii, lii Coke's day, principally involved questions uf real property : these were rare : and others, not inure important, were trivial ones of defamation of character. Ti ins on bills of exchange were then neatly unknown. There are not more than tvo or three reported cases of this description previously to the time when Coke quitted the bench. Few casts then occurred of the kind, n Licit now so iacessantly occupy the atteutiva of the Cuurts. The labour of the Jiidges were light.

The course of legal study was, in his time, rather different from the system at present adopted. A student was then usually obliged to be eight y tams on the book* of an Intl of Court before Le could be called to the Bar ; five years longer than is at present necessary. Cliffurd's Inn, as us till as several other subordinate Inns, were then, as now, appendages to the larger Inns of Court ; and in these it was usual for the law students to dwell, and associate together, for the purpose of study and the dive,

tation of doubtful or difficult points of law. The practice has long been disused. I learn front an old manuscript of the time of Henry the Eighth, that in these Inns a curious system of study was then adopted. "After dinner and 'upper," says this writer, "the students and learners in the house sit together, by three and three in a company ; and one of the three putteth forth some doubtful question in the law to the other two of his com- pany ; and they reason and argue unto it in English : and at last he that putteth forth the question declareth his mind, also showing unto them the judgment, or better opinion of his book, where he had the same question ; and this do the students observe everyday throughout the year, except festival days." The Benchers of the Temple had even then to contend with some unruly spirits. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry the Eighth, 30th May, they ordered the students not to have long beards. The treasurers of all the Inns of Court conferred together on this mighty affair in their full Parliament ; and iu conse- quence, it was ordered, by the decree of the nth of May, the first and second year of Philip and Mary, "that no fellow of this house should wear his beard above three weeks' growth." In the thirty-eighth year of Elizabeth, the students were desired, by the 'leachers, not to go into the City with either cloaks or hats, boots or spurs, " except when they ride out of the town."

The benchere equally set their faces against gambling. " None of the society shall within this house exercise the play of choffe-grotte, or slypeerotte, upon pain of six shillings and eightpence. The students, it seems, very early ac- quired the accomplishment of tobacco-smoking ; for on the 7th of November, seventh year of Charles the First, an order was issued, " That there be no drinking of health., nor any wine or tobacco uttered or sold within the house."