were not made for their own sakes, but for the sake of those who are to be guided by them; and though it is true that they are and ought to be sacred, yet if they be or are become unuseful for their end, they must either be amended, if it may be, or new laws be substituted, and the old repealed, so it be done regularly, deliberately, and so far forth only as the exigence or convenience justly demands it: and in this respect the saying is true, Salus populi suprema lex esto.' * 'He that thinks a state can be exactly steered by the same laws in every kind, as it was two or three hundred years ago, may as well imagine that the clothes that fitted him when a child should serve him when he was grown a man. The matter changeth, the custom, the contracts, the commerce, the dispositions, educations, and tempers of men and societies, change in a long tract of time, and so must their laws in some measure be changed, or they will not be useful for their state and condition; and besides all this, time is the wisest thing under heaven. These very laws, which at first seemed the wisest constitution under heaven, have some flaws and defects discovered in them by time. As manufactures, mercantile arts, architecture, and building, and philosophy itself, secure new advantages and discoveries by time and experience, so much more do laws which concern the manners and customs of men.'

"The multiplication and growth of the laws are urged by Hale as inducing a necessity for their revision and reduction: By length of time and continuance, laws are so multiplied and grown to that excessive variety, that there is a necessity of a reduction of them, or otherwise it is not manageable. ✶ ✶ ✶ And the reason is, because this age, for the purpose, received from the last a body of laws, and they add more, and transmit the whole to the next age; and they add to what they had received, and transmit the whole stock to the next age. Thus, as the rolling of a snow-ball, it increaseth in bulk in every age till it becomes utterly unmanageable. And hence it is that, even in the laws of England, we have so many varieties of forms of conveyances, feoffments, fines, release, confirmation, grant, attornment, common recovery deeds enrolled, &c. because the use coming in at several times, every age did retain somewhat of what was past, and added somewhat of its own, and so carried over the whole product to the quotient. And this produceth mistakes: a man, perchance, useth one sort of conveyance where he should have used another. It breeds uncertainty and contradiction of opinion, and that begets suits and expense. It must necessarily cause ignorance in the professors and profession itself, because the volumes of the law are not easily to be mastered.' The mode in which Sir Matthew Hale proposed to accomplish the desired reform in our juridical system is pretty fully explained by him that the king, on the address of both houses of parliament, should direct the judges and other fit persons to prepare proper bills to effectuate the object:-that these bills should be brought into the house of commons:—that after having been twice read and committed, the judges should be called before the committee to explain the reasons and grounds of the proposed alterations; and that those learned persons should again attend the house of lords for the same purpose. 'Bills thus prepared and hammered,' adds Sir Matthew Hale,' would have fewer flaws, and necessity of supplemental or explanatory laws,

than hath of late times happened.' It is to be much regretted that the tract from which these extracts have been made is left imperfect by the author, and the particular alterations which he probably intended to recommend are consequently unknown. A few pages only are devoted to these subjects, from which, however, some valuable suggestions are to be gathered. The observations on the propriety of rendering the county court a cheap and efficient tribunal are especially worthy of notice. In the year 1796, Mr Hargrave also published the excellent treatise of Hale On the Jurisdiction of the Lords' House of Parliament,' and in the preface expressed a hope that he should be enabled to present to the public a complete edition of Lord Hale's works; a design which, unfortunately, has never been completed."

Beyond the strict limits of his own profession, Sir Matthew Hale's chief study was theology. The Rev. T. Thirwall, who has edited a selection from his moral and religious treatises, says of them, they "may be considered a species of extemporary meditations, the production of a head and heart fraught with a rich treasure of human and divine knowledge." His principal religious treatise is entitled The Primitive Origination of Mankind considered and examined according to the Light of Nature.' His Contemplations, moral and Divine,' have long been favourably known to the religious world. They are evidently unlaboured productions, closet meditations, never designed to meet the public eye; but they are vigorous sketches, significant of a mind of high and original powers.

Digby, Earl of Bristol.

BORN A. D. 1612.-DIED A. D. 1677.

GEORGE DIGBY, eldest son of John, first Baron Digby, was born in October, 1612, at Madrid, where his father was then English ambassador. While yet a child of only twelve years, he became an object of public attention, from the circumstance of his having presented an appeal for his father at the bar of the house of commons, with a simplicity, and grace of action and expression, which won the hearts of all the spectators. We have already had occasion to allude to the discord betwixt Buckingham and Bristol on the subject of the projected marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta. It was the persecution to which Bristol was subjected on his return home from his Spanish embassy, that gave occasion to his appeal for redress; and that he had not over-estimated the talents of his child, when he resolved to make him the bearer of his appeal, was proved by the result.

In 1626, George Digby was entered of Magdalene college, Oxford, where he run a very splendid career, distancing all competitors, and that apparently without any great study or effort on his part. On leaving college, he joined his father, then living in a sort of honourable exile at his seat in Dorsetshire. In this retirement, young Digby appears to have given himself entirely up to study and reading; he ranged through almost every branch of literature, and made those va

'Roscoe's 'Lives of Eminent British Lawyers,' in Lardrer's Cyclopedia.

ried accessions of mental wealth with which he afterwards astonished all who came into contact with him. But his ambition had not yet been roused, either by a desire of personal distinction, or a sense of his father's wrongs. At last, an incident occurred which determined him to throw the whole weight of his power and influence into the scale against the court. During one of his short occasional visits to London, a rencontre occurred between himself and a gentleman of the court. He wounded and disarmed his antagonist, but the scene of their contest was unluckily within the precincts of the palace, and for this offence he was seized and treated with great personal indignity. An opportunity of revenge soon occurred, for he was elected to serve for the county of Dorset in the parliament which met on the 13th of April, 1640. During the brief space of its sitting, young Digby not only contrived to make it appear what side he meant to join, but what might be the value of the accession made in his person to the party into whose arms he had thrown himself.

Having been again returned for Dorsetshire to the long parliament, he was immediately fixed upon as the mover of a select committee to frame a remonstrance to the king on public grievances, which he did in a very splendid speech, only six days after. We cannot forbear quoting one passage from his address on this occasion :-" It hath been a metaphor frequently in parliament," said he, "and, if my memory fail me not, was made use of in the lord-keeper's speech at the opening of the last, that what money kings raised from their subjects, it was but as vapours drawn up from the earth by the sun, to be distilled upon it again in fructifying showers. The comparison, Mr Speaker, hath held of late years in this kingdom too unluckily. What hath been raised from the subject by those violent attractions, hath been formed, it is true, into clouds, but how? To darken the sun's own lustre; and hath fallen again upon the land only in hailstones and mildews, to batter and prostrate still more and more our liberties, and to blast and wither our affections; had not the latter of these been kept alive by our king's own personal virtues, which will ever preserve him, in spite of all ill-councillors, a sacred object both of our admiration and love." From this period, Digby was marked out as one of the leaders of the party now engaged in checking the influence of the court. His eloquence rendered him a most valuable and efficient auxiliary at a time when so much needed to be done in the way of invective and impeachment. The road to the very highest pinnacle of a patriot's wishes was now open to him; and the universal expectation of his friends and associates was, that he would seize the golden opportunity and fulfil their most ardent wishes. But, in the hour of trial, he was found wanting. At the very moment that the impeachment of Strafford was going forward, and while professing to take an active part in the measure adopted for bringing that notorious political profligate to justice, Digby was secretly negotiating with the crown. His overtures were, of course, eagerly grasped at, and Digby prepared to throw off the mask by continuing to act with Strafford's prosecutors, but with increasing coolness. His demeanour at length roused the suspicion of the house, and he was called upon for explanation of various points in his recent conduct : but the king interfered to extricate him from his embarrassment by calling him, on the 9th of June, 1641, to the house of peers. Digby

now printed the speech which he had delivered against the third reading of Strafford's attainder bill; the commons, in their indignation, voted that it should be burnt by the hands of the hangman.

The ill-advised impeachments of the 5th of January, 1642, were among the first fruits of Digby's confidence with the royal ear. On the retreat of the five members, with Lord Kimbolton, into the city Digby offered to seize them with an armed force; but the king, less infatuated than his councillor, rejected the proposal. Digby was now the object of universal odium and execration; he saw and felt his disgrace and danger, and fled to Holland. Weary at length of inactivity, he ventured to return to England, and contrived to reach York undiscovered, where he had an interview with the king. But on his return to Holland with some confidential communication to the queen, the vessel in which he had embarked was taken at sea and brought into Hull. Here he had the singular address so to move the feelings and enlist the sympathy of Sir John Hotham, then governor of Hull, on his behalf, that he concealed his knowledge of the rank and quality of his prisoner, and connived at his escape. Soon after this, we find him behaving with great gallantry at the battle of Edgehill, and subsequently at the siege of Lichfield; but on a disagreement with Prince Rupert, he threw up his regiment and returned to court. On the death of Falkland, Digby became principal secretary of state to the king; he was about the same time elected high-steward of the university of Oxford. In his new capacity of secretary, Digby exhibited little talent. His project for a treaty between the king and the city of London, wild in itself, was frustrated by the mismanagement of the correspondence relating to it; he was soon after gulled by Brown, who commanded at Abingdon, into negotiations which, while they had for their professed object the delivery of that important place to the king, were entered into by Brown with no other view than to gain time for putting himself into a better state of defence. Again, in October, 1645, he hastily entered into an intercourse with Lesley, and some other commanders of the Scottish forces then in England, without first having made sure of his men, and was greatly surprised when he discovered that the crafty Lesley had imparted their whole correspondence to the parliamentary party. His acceptance of the lieutenant-genera!ship of the forces north of the Trent, on the dismissal of Prince Rupert, was an equally unadvised and rash step. He had no military talents, but he never discovered the fact until he found himself cut off by Lesley's army from returning into England, after having vainly attempted to form a junction with the marquess of Montrose. In this dilemma, he adopted the sudden resolution of leaving his men and embarking for the Isle of Man, from whence he went to Ireland.

His favourite scheme now was to get the prince of Wales persuaded to raise his standard in Ireland; but failing in this, he retired to France, where the Cardinal Mazarine showed him some little attention. We soon after hear of him as having entered the French army as a volunteer, and commanding a troop of horse, chiefly composed of English gentlemen, in what was called the war of the Frondeurs. In this service he greatly distinguished himself by his personal bravery, and was rewarded by Louis with a very lucrative monopoly. His succession to the earldom of Bristol by the death of his father, completed his title

New singularities, how

to estimation in the eyes of his new friends. ever, soon took possession of him. With a professed love of money amounting to avarice, and whilst he was universally supposed to be amassing enormous wealth, he was indulging in secret in the most amorous dissipation and unbounded extravagance. From this dream of delusion he was at last awoke by the necessity of his circumstances, -he found himself without a penny, and took up a new whim to ascend the highest ladder of ambition. His first idea was to supplant Mazarine as premier of France. With his usual precipitancy and blindness to the most obvious consequences, he instituted all sorts of intrigues to this end, and quickly found himself dismissed from all his employments, and shunned and abandoned by the whole court. He now wandered in a state of positive destitution into the Spanish camp in the Netheriands; but here his fame had preceded him, and none seemed willing to enter into friendship with such an unstable and intriguing characYet such was the extraordinary fascination of his manners, and such the address with which he wielded the varied talents which he unquestionably possessed, that in spite of their previous disinclination to intimacy with him, the principal officers in the Spanish army soon found him their trusty companion; and even the celebrated Don John of Austria took him to his bosom as his confidential friend.

ter.

His next freak was to embrace Catholicism. How far the man was conscientious in this change of religious profession, it does not become us to judge, on the slender evidence we possess on the subject. It is strange, however, that he never seems to have dreamt of his conversion operating to the prejudice of his political advancement in his own country. On presenting himself in England, he was indeed received with external marks of respect by Charles, but no office either in the state or the court was offered to him; and, in his blindness to what must have been obvious to every other person but himself, he imputed the neglect with which he was treated to the malignant influence of Clarendon. His bitterness soon manifested itself in the charge of high treason which he preferred against the chancellor in the house of peers, on the 10th of July, 1663. The measure, as might have been anticipated by any one else but himself, ended in his own disgrace. He remained for two years concealed, or rather affecting to conceal himself; at last the duchess of Cleveland obtained a private audience for him with Charles. From this period, his public life may be regarded as having closed. He died on the 20th of March, 1677, at Chelsea, where he was buried.

Andrew Marvell.

BORN A. D. 1620.-died a. d. 1678.

THIS eminent English statesman and poet, who has been honoured with the name of the British Aristides,' was the son of a respectable clergyman of the church of England. He was born at Kingston-uponHull, on the 15th of November, 1620, and probably received the first rudiments of education under his father, whom Echard calls the facetious Calvinistic minister of Hull.' Young Marvell was early distinguish