Selden appointed the judge one of his executors. Hale cherished the highest regard for his memory, and kept his picture ever near him.

Cromwell died September 3, 1658. Hale refused the mourning sent to him and his servants for the funeral; he also refused the new commission which Richard offered him, and resisted every importunity of the judges, as well as of others, and declared that he could no longer act under such authority. In the parliament of 1658, he represented the university of Oxford. April 25, 1660, the famous "Convention" parliament met. Hale appeared among them as one of the members for Gloucestershire; and he bore a steady part in the attempt now triumphantly made for restoring the exiled Charles, though he felt an objection to receive him back without reasonable restrictions. Burnet remarks, that "to the king's coming in without conditions may be well imputed all the errors of his reign." But Monk's policy defeated Hale's patriotic suggestion. On the 8th of May, 1660, Charles II. was proclaimed. The king having early proposed an act of indemnity, and Hale, being nominated one of the committee for the purpose, framed and carried through the bill. It passed the commons on the 11th of July, 1660. Hale was included in the special commission appointed for the trial of the regicides. He also was offered a seat on the bench. His reluctance to accept the honor was very great. His reasons for declining it were, 1. The smallness of his estate, the greatness of his charge, his debts, the bad influence which it might have on his children. 2. His comparative inability to endure travel. 3. The liableness to have his motives misconstrued, having formerly served under a commission from Cromwell. 4. The existing confusion in relation to the administration of justice. 5. His own aversion to the incident pomp and grandeur, as well as too much pity in capital cases. 7. Danger of the loss of his integrity and honesty. Various other reasons were suggested by Hale, which show his remarkable probity and Christian feeling.

On the 7th of November, 1660, Hale received from the hands of Clarendon, then lord chancellor, the commission of lord chief baron of England. Thus the advocate of Strafford, Laud, and Charles I., who was raised to the bench by Cromwell, was not only reinstated by Charles II., but compelled by him, against his own will, to accept of the very highest judicial trust. This is to be attributed, not to the vacillation of Hale's principles, but to the influence of genuine Christianity. Sir Matthew Hale now framed those admirable rules of conduct, which so many have applauded, and which so few imitate. They are here quoted.

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Things necessary to be had continually in remembrance.

1. That in the administration of justice, I am intrusted for God, the king, and country, and therefore, 2. That it be done uprightly, deliberately, resolutely. 3. That I rest not upon my own understanding or strength, but implore and rest upon the direction and strength of God. 4. That in the execution of justice I carefully 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 prepossessed with any judgment at all, till the whole business, and both parties be heard. 7. That I never engage myself in the beginning of any cause, but reserve myself unprejudiced till the whole be heard. 8. That in business capital, though my nature prompt me to pity, yet to consider, that there is also a pity due to the 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 biased with compassion to the poor, or favor to the rich, in point of

justice. 12. Not to be solicitous what men will say or think, so long as I keep myself exactly according 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 more harm ensues, moderation is no injustice. 15. In criminals of blood, if the fact be evident, severity is justice. 16. To abhor all private solicitations, of what kind soever, and by whomsoever, in matters depending. 17. To charge my servants not to interpose in any business whatsoever, not to take more than their known fees, not to give any undue precedence to causes, and not to recommend counsel. 18. To be short and sparing at meals, that I may be fitter for business."

Sir Matthew had been hitherto tried by prosperity. He was now visited with a threatening sickness. On his recovery, he wrote some Considerations on this event. "From this dispensation," he says, "I find and learn that man is a very fragile, unstable, and weak creature. The chiefest occasion of my sickness I could visibly impute but to a little wet taken in my head in my journey to London." "I hope ever to remember, after it hath pleased God to restore me in some measure to my health, never to put confidence in my own strength." "I have found experimentally that it is of great necessity for men in their health and strength to walk with all piety and duty to God; with all watchfulness and sobriety, with all justice, honesty, and charity and goodness to men; to work out their salvation with fear and trembling; to secure unto themselves that one thing necessary, the magnum opus of our lives, the pardon of sins and peace with God." "The thought that the greatest business and concernment of my life was, in a great measure, well settled in the time of my health, and in the strength and integrity of my body and mind, was more comfortable to me than the best cordial." "I experimentally found that sickness is an ill season to begin to compose and settle the great concernment of our souls. Believe it, it is business enough to be thoroughly sick." "I have found by experience that the greatest perturbations of a sick bed are the sins of the past life; therefore, let every man that means to have his sickness as easy and comfortable as may be, be most careful to avoid all sin in his health." "[ experimentally learned, that this world is a vain and empty thing; and that the generality of mankind are strongly and extremely deceived in their estimate and valuation of it, and miserably misled in their eager and violent prosecution of it."

The sterling integrity of Hale may be seen by the following authentic anecdotes. A noble duke called to explain a suit in which he was interested, and which was shortly to be tried, in order, as it was alleged, to its being better understood when actually heard in court. Hale interrupted him, saying that 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. Nor would he suffer the noble duke to proceed.

While on the circuit, a gentleman, who had a trial, presented Hale with a buck. When the trial commenced, Hale, remembering the name, asked whether he was the same person who sent him the venison." Finding that to be the case, he told him, "he could not suffer the trial to go on until he had paid him for it." The gentleman remarked, 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 on the circuit; and his statement was immediately corroborated. But Hale remained firm. On an occasion when the dean and chapter of Salisbury had a cause to try before him, he directed

his servants to pay for the six sugar loaves which, according to custom, were presented to him on the circuit by that body.

March 10, 1664.-Two old women were indicted for bewitching seven persons. Sentence of death was pronounced on them by Hale, and the penalty was suffered. A belief in witchcraft so prevailed in England as to hold in bondage the best of men. Proof is found in the 72d canon made by the clerical convocation in 1603, and in the laws enacted against the crime itself. Isaac Ambrose, in his Treatise on the New Birth, directs persons seeking salvation to inquire, while searching out their sins, whether they have not sometimes been guilty of witchcraft. The canon cited is yet in force. The laws were not repealed till more than seventy years after the time in question. The fact of witchcraft was admitted by Bacon and Addison. Dr. Johnson more than inclined to the same side of the question; and Sir William Blackstone quite frowns on opposers. These facts are mentioned not to justify Hale, but to show the injustice of singling him out as peculiarly guilty. The heavy charges which have been brought against the Salem people in this country, governor Winthrop, Cotton Mather and others, lie equally against the most learned, eminent and pious of mankind.

The great fire in London happened in 1665. Hale, eager at all times to do good, was the first to offer his services for settling the numerous questions which grew out of it. The grateful citizens caused his portrait and those of his coadjutors to be placed in Guildhall. They presented him likewise with a handsome silver watch. In 1667, Hale removed to Acton then the residence of Richard Baxter. "We sat," says the latter, "next seats together at church many weeks; but neither did he ever speak to me, nor I to him. At last serjeant Fountain asked me why I did not visit the lord chief baron. I told him because I had no reason for it, being a stranger to him, and had some against it, viz. that a judge, whose reputation was necessary to the ends of his office, should not be brought under court suspicion or disgrace, by his familiarity with a person whom the interest and diligence of some prelates had rendered so odious (as I knew myself to be with such), I durst not be so injurious to him. The serjeant answered, It is not meet for him to come first to you; I know why I speak it; let me entreat you to go first to him. In obedience to which request I did it; and so we entered into neighborly familiarity. I lived then in a small house, but it had a pleasant garden and backside, which the honest landlord had a desire to sell. The judge had a mind to the house; but he would not meddle with it till he got a stranger to me to come, and inquire of me, whether I was willing to leave it. I told him, I was not only willing but desirous, not for my own ends, but for my landlord's sake, who must need sell it; and so he bought it, and lived in that poor house, till his mortal sickness sent him to the place of his interment." This intimacy between Hale and Baxter was doubtless of particular service to the nonconformists. Burnet remarks: "Besides great charities to the non-conformists, who were then, as he thought, too hardly used, Hale took great care to cover 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 differences that were raised in the church very much, and, according to the impartiality of his justice, he blamed some things on both sides. He thought many of the non-conformists had merited highly in the business of the king's restoration, and, at least, deserved, that terms of conformity should not be made stricter than they were before the war. But that which affected him most, was, that, he saw the

heats and contentions, which followed upon those different parties and interests, did take people off from the indispensable things of religion, and slackened the zeal of otherwise good men for the substance of it, so much being spent about external and indifferent things." A proposition was set on foot by the lord keeper Bridgman, for a comprehension of the more moderate dissenters, and a limited indulgence towards such as could not be brought within the comprehension. Hale was strongly in favor of this proceeding. Dr. Wilkins, an eminent divine of the church of England, and afterwards bishop of Chester, also entered warmly into the measure. The particulars were put into the form of a bill by Hale. The project, however, fell to the ground through the violent opposition which it encountered. From that time, Hale became strongly attached to Wilkins. In 1670, Baxter was imprisoned for six months through the opposition of some persons to his faithful preaching. He was released on a writ of habeas corpus, very much by the influence o. Hale.

Early in May, 1671, Sir John Keyling, lord chief justice of the king's bench, died. On the 18th of the same month, Hale succeeded him; and still pursued the same intrepid and exemplary course. A military captain and one of his serjeants, thinking fit to carry military tactics into civil affairs, had rescued by means of twenty or thirty soldiers, an individual arrested for debt after enlisting. "Whatever you military men think," said Hale to the captain, "you shall find that you are under the civil jurisdiction; and you but knaw a file; you will break your teeth ere you shall prevail against it." He committed both the culprits to Newgate, and on their subsequent appearance before him, he asked, why an information was not exhibited; telling the city counsel, “that if the sheriff's did not prosecute, the court would, for it was a matter of great example and ought not to be smothered." Hale assisted in private such students as applied to him; he advised them to use their books diligently, and directed their studies. When he saw any thing amiss, particularly if he observed a love of finery, he did not withhold admonition. It was done, however, in a smiling, pleasant way; usually by observing that that did not become their profession. The sight of students in long periwigs, or attorneys with swords, was known to be so offensive to him, as to induce those who loved such things to avoid them when they waited upon him, in order to escape reproof.

His incessant labors began now visibly to impair his constitution. The firm and vigorous health he had hitherto enjoyed, and to which his great temperance and equanimity had conduced, suddenly gave way. In two days, inflammation brought him low; asthma ensued; and that was followed by dropsy. "He had death," says Baxter, "in his lapsed countenance, flesh, and strength, with shortness of breath." So enfeebled was he, all at once, as to be scarce able, though supported by his servants, to walk through Westminster Hall. Perceiving that his days were nearly numbered, he resolved on retirement from office. As soon as his determination was known, he was beset by the importunities of friends, and an almost universal clamor, that the event, which seems to have been regarded as a national calamity, might, if possible, be averted. At length, on the 20th of February, 1675-6, weary of waiting, and stimulated by increasing infirmities, he surrendered in person his high office to the king. Charles treated him with the affability for which he was remarkable; wished him the return of his health; and assured him, that he would still look upon him as one of his judges; that he should have recourse to his advice when his health would permit; and, likewise, continue his pension so long as he lived. Charles's bounty made upon the susceptible heart of Hale a deep impression. When

the first payment was made, he devoted a great part of it to charitable uses, and avowed his design so to employ it in future. The same liberality was shown by him on the dismissal of his servants—that is, to all who were not domestics. To some he gave considerable presents; to each a friendly token.

No sooner was Hale fully discharged, and all his arrangements completed, than he returned home with as much cheerfulness as the want of health would allow. He felt emancipated from a state of thraldom. Sir Richard Rainsford succeeded him; and when the commission was delivered, he was thus addressed by Finch, the lord chancellor : "Onerosum succedere bono principi, was the saying of Pliny the younger; and you will find it so too, that are to succeed such a chief-justice, of so indefatigable an industry, so invincible a patience, so exemplary an integrity, and so magnanimous a contempt of worldly things, without which no man can be truly great; and to all this a man that was so absolutely a master of the science of the law, and even of the most abstruse and hidden parts of it, that one may truly say of his knowledge in the law, what Augustine said of Jerome's knowledge in divinity: Quod Hieronymus nescivit, nullus mortalium unquam scivit."

Sir Matthew now left Acton, and retired to his seat at Alderley, in Gloucestershire, "in likelihood," observed Baxter, "to die there. It is not the least of my pleasures," continues that great man, "that I have lived some years in his more than ordinary love and friendship, and that we are now waiting which shall be first in heaven, whither, he saith, he is going with full content and acquiescence in the will of a gracious God, and doubts not but we shall shortly live together. Oh what a blessed world would this be, were but the generality of magistrates such as he!"

The change, though to his native air, was unavailing. He retained, however, his delight in devotion and study. His closet was still his element, and such was his relish for its pleasures, that when unable to walk, he was carried, into it. Instead of counting the Sabbath a weariness, or employing it, as many do, in idle or frivolous occupations, he attended with pious constancy upon public worship. There he meekly heard the word. of God; he received it with pure affection, and brought forth the fruits of the Spirit. Afterwards, he watered the good seed, by repeating before his family, often with judicious additions, an outline of the truths taught in the pulpit; and then between the evening service and supper-time, secluding himself entirely from others, he indulged in meditation, employing his pen merely to aid the fixing of his thoughts, and to preserve them the better for future reference and domestic instruction. These "Sabbath Thoughts" were published, though without the consent of Hale.

About this time, Sir Matthew committed to the press a Treatise on the Primitive Origination of Mankind, a section only of a direct and systematic attack on Atheism, which he had then completed, and which yet remains in manuscript. The first part was intended to prove the creation of the world and the truth of the Mosaic history; the second, the nature of the soul and a future state; the third, the attributes of God, both from the abstract ideas of him, and the light of nature, the evidence of Providence, and 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 objections. The whole treatise was highly approved by bishop Wilkins and archbishop Tillotson.

The termination of his lordship's pilgrimage now rapidly approached; and like one wearied with a long and sorrowful day, he wished for night.

VOL. X.

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