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such grave (and wise) counsel, as you will expedite what you have in hand to do: which will do me and yourselves an infinite deal of honour; you, in shewing your love to me, and me, that I may perfect that work which my father hath so happily begun.

Last of all, because some malicious men may, and as I hear, have given out, that I am not so true a keeper and maintainer of the true religion that I profess, I assure you, that I may with St. Paul say, that I have been trained up at Gamaliel's feet and although I shall never be so arrogant as to assume unto myself the rest, I shall so far shew the end of it, that all the world may see, that no man hath been, nor ever shall be, more desirous to maintain the religion I profess than I shall be.

Now because I am unfit for much speaking, I mean to bring up the fashion of my predecessors, to have my lord keeper speak for me in most things: therefore I have commanded him to speak something unto you at this time, which is more for formality than any great matter he hath to say unto you.

SIR EDWARD COKE,

(Lord Chief Justice, and author of the Institutes,) Was born in 1550, and died in 1634. He was removed from his office, in 1616, and first joined the popular side in parliament in 1621. There is the same quaintness and pithness in the other speeches which are given of this celebrated lawyer, that will be found in the following one. It is a little remarkable, that almost all the abuses of expenditure, and heads of œconomical reform, which were the objects of Mr. Burke's famous bill, are here distinctly enumerated.

Debate on a Motion for the Supply.

OLD Sir Edward Coke begins as usual, in this debate, with some Latin sentences :-Necessitas affectata, in

vincibilis, et improvida. The two last, he said, break, all laws and orders, and must be supplied; but if their necessities came by wantonness, then no such cause. to give. Neutralitas nec amicos parit, nec inimicos tollit. Commune periculum commune auxilium. No king can subsist in an honourable estate without three abilities: First, To be able to maintain himself against sudden invasions. Secondly, to aid his allies and confederates. Thirdly, to reward his well-deserving servants. But he urged, there was a leak in the government, of which leak such as these were the causes : frauds in the customs; treaty about the Spanish match; new invented offices, with large fees; old unprofitable offices, which the king might justly take away with law, love of his people, and his own honour; the presidentships. of York and Wales; multiplicity of offices in one man; every officer to live on his own office; the king's household out of order; new tables kept there made the leakage the greater; voluntary annuities or pensions, which ought to be stopped till the king was out of debt, and able to pay them. In the 4th of Henry IV, no man was to beg of the king till he was out of debt. Lastly, that all unnecessary charges, costly diet, apparel, buildings, &c. increase still the leakage.

To apply some means for remedy, the multiplicity of forests and parks, now a great charge to the king, might be drawn into a great benefit to him; that understanding officers be employed in the king's house to reduce it to its ancient form, and not with sir Lionel Cranfield to divide a goose; and that his shop-boys be not taken from his shops and placed in the green cloth; that the great offices for the defence of the kingdom be put into the hands of able men that have experience, as admiralty's places, &c. The king's ordinary charge in Edward III.'s time was borne by the king's ordinary revenue. Ireland at that time was also 30,000l. a year benefit to the king, but now a great charge to him. To petition the king rather for a logique than a rhetorique

hand; a strait than an open one. Move for a committee to put down these, and such other heads as shall be offered.

SIR ROBERT COTTON.

(The famous Antiquary,)

Was born 1570 and died 1631. He was made a baronet by James I. and was one of the opposition party in the time of his successor., The speech which follows was occasioned by some offence taken by the court at the severe reflections cast upon the duke of Buckingham in the house of commons. It is, as one might expect, learned, full of facts and authorities, containing matters which no doubt were thought to be of great weight and moment.

Mr. Speaker,

ALTHOUGH the constant wisdom of this house of commons did well and worthily appear, in censuring

*This mode of expression seems natural enough to any one who was familiar with Cicero's description of the difference between logic and rhetoric, and who knew that most of his hearers either were, or would be thought equally learned. It was a convenient short-hand language to those who were hardly ever accustomed to think or speak but in classical allusions, and which no one could affect to misunderstand without first exposing his own ignorance :it was a sort of word to the wise. So that its being abrupt and farfetched would be a recommendation of it, and would even give it an air of simplicity with men of deep learning, as being more in the way of their habitual and favourite train of ideas But this style, which may be called the abstruse or pedantic, is soon exploded when knowledge becomes more generally diffused, and the pretension to it universal: when there are few persons who profess to be very learned, and none are contented to be thought entirely ignorant; when every one who can read is a critic; when the reputation of taste and good sense is not confined to an acquaintance with the Greek and Latin authors, and it is not thought necessary to a man's understanding an eloquent discourse, or even to his making one, that be should ever have read a definition either of logic or rhetoric.

that ill advised member the last day, for trenching so far into their ancient liberties, and might encourage each worthy servant of the public here to offer up freely his counsel and opinion, yet, since these walls cannot conceal from the ears of captious, guilty, and revengeful men without, the counsel and debates within, I will endeavour, as my clear mind is free from any personal distaste of any one, so to express the honest thoughts of my heart, and discharge the best care of my trust, as no person shall justly tax my innocent and public mind; except his conscience shall make him guilty of such crimes as worthily have in parliament impeached others in older times. I will therefore, with as much brevity as I can, set down how these disorders have by degrees sprung up in our own memories; how the wisdom of the best and wisest ages did of old redress the like; and lastly, what modest and dutiful course I would wish to be followed by ourselves in this so happy spring of our hopeful master. For, Mr. Speaker, we are not to judge but to present: the redress is above ad querimoniam vulgi. Now, Mr. Speaker, so long as those attended about our late sovereign master, now with God, as had served the late queen, of happy memory, debts of the crown were not so great; commissions and grants not so often complained of in parliament; trade flourished; pensions not so many, though more than in the late queen's time, for they exceeded not 18,000/ now near 120,000l.; all things of moment were carried by public debate at the council table; no honours set to sale, no places of judicature; laws against priests and recusants were executed; resort of papists to ambassadors' houses barred and punished, his majesty by daily direction to all his ministers, and by his own pen, declaring his dislike of that profession; no wasteful expences in fruitless ambassages; nor any transcendent power in any one minister. For matters of state the council chamber held up the fit and ancient dignity.

So long as my lord of Somerset stood in state of grace, and had by his majesty's favour the trust of the signet seal, he oft would glory justly, that there passed neither to himself or his friends any long grants of his highness's lands or pensions. For of that which himself had, he paid 20,000l. towards the marriage portion of the king's daughter. His care was to pass no monopoly or illegal grant; and that some members of this house can witness by his charge unto them. No giving way to the sale of honours, as a breach upon the nobility (for such were his own words,) refusing sir John Roper's office, then tendered, to procure him to be made a baron. The match with Spain then offered, (and with condition to require no further toleration in religion than ambassadors here are allowed) he, discovering the double dealing and the danger, dissuaded his majesty from; and left him so far in distrust of the faith of that king, and his great instrument, Gondomar, then here residing, that his majesty did term him long time after a Juggling Jack. Thus stood the effect of his power with his majesty when the clouds of his misfortune fell upon him. What the future advices led in, we may well remember. The marriage with Spain was again renewed; Gondomar declared an honest man; popery heartened, by employing suspected persons for conditions of conveniency; the forces of his majesty in the Palatinate withdrawn, upon Spanish faith improved here and believed, by which his highness's children have lost their patrimony, and more money been spent in fruitless ambassages than would have maintained an army fit to have recovered that country; our old and fast allies disheartened by that tedious and dangerous treaty; and the king our now master exposed to so great a peril, as no wise and faithful council would ever have advised: errors in government, more in misfortune by weak councils than in princes.

The loss of the country of Poyntou in France, was laid to bishop Wickham's charge in the first of Richard

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