sent the reader with such a character of him, as the laying his several virtues together will amount to: in which I know how difficult a task I undertake; for, to write defectively of him, were to injure him, and lessen the memory of one to whom I intend to do all the right that is in my power. On the other hand, there is so much here to be commended, and proposed for the imitation of others, that I am afraid some may imagine I am rather making a picture of him, from an abstracted idea of great virtues and perfections, than setting him out, as he truly was: but there is great encouragement in this, that I write concerning a man so fresh in all people's remembrance, that is so lately dead, and was so much and so well known, that I shall have many vouchers, who will be ready to justify me in all that I am to relate, and to add a great deal to what I can say. It has appeared in the account of his various learning, how great his capacities were, and how much they were improved by constant study. He rose always early in the morning; he loved to walk much abroad, not only for his health, but he thought it opened, his mind, and enlarged his thoughts to have the creation of God before his eyes. When he set himself to any study, he used to cast his design into a scheme, which he did with a great exactness of method; he took nothing on trust, but pursued his inquiries as far as they could go; and as he was humble enough to confess his ignorance, and submit to mysteries which he could not comprehend, so he was not easily imposed on by any shews of reason, or the bugbears of vulgar opinions. He brought all his knowledge as much to scientifical principles as he possibly could, which made him neglect the study of tongues, for the bent of his mind lay another way. Discoursing once of this to some, they said, "they looked on the common "law as a study that could not be brought into "a scheme, nor formed into a rational science, by reason of the indigestedness of it, and the "multiplicity of the cases in it, which ren"dered it very hard to be understood, or re"duced into a method;" but he said, "he "was not of their mind," and so, quickly after, he drew, with his own hand, a scheme of the whole order and parts of it, in a large sheet of paper, to the great satisfaction of those to whom he sent it. Upon this hint some pressed him to compile a body of the English law. It could hardly ever be done by a man who knew it better, and would with more judgment and industry have put it into method; but he said, it was a great and noble design, which "would be of vast advantage to the nation. 66 SO it was too much for a private man to un"dertake it was not to be entered upon, but "by the command of a prince, and with the "communicated endeavours of some of the most "eminent of the profession." 66 as : ; He had great vivacity in his fancy, as may appear by his inclination to poetry, and the lively illustrations, and many tender strains in his contemplations; but he looked on eloquence and wit as things to be used very chastely, in serious matters, which should come under a severer inquiry: therefore he was both, when at the bar, and on the bench, a great enemy to all eloquence or rhetoric in pleading: he said, "If the judge or jury had a right under "standing, it signified nothing, but a waste "of time, and loss of words; and if they were "weak, and easily wrought on, it was a more "decent way of corrupting them, by bribing "their fancies, and biasing their affections; and wondered much at that affectation of the French lawyers in imitating the Roman orators in their pleadings. For the oratory of the Romans was occasioned by their popular government, and the factions of the city, so that those who intended to excel in the pleading of causes, were trained up in the schools of the Rhetors, till they became ready and expert in that luscious way of discourse. It is true, the composures of such a man as Tully was, who mixed an extraordinary quickness, an exact judgment, and a just decorum with his skill in rhetoric, do still entertain the readers of them with great pleasure; but at the same time it must be acknowledged, that there is not that chastity of style, that closeness of reasoning, nor that justness of figures in his orations, that is in his other writings; so that a great deal was said by him, rather because he knew it would be acceptable to his auditors, than that it was approved of by himself; and all who read them, will acknowledge they are better pleased with them as essays of wit and style, than as pleadings, by which such a judge as ours would not be much wrought on. And if there are such grounds to censure the performances of the greatest master in eloquence, we may easily infer what nauseous discourses the other orators made; since in oratory, as well as in poetry, none can do indifferently. So our judge wondered to find the French, that live under a monarchy, so fond of imitating that which was an ill effect of the popular government of Rome. He therefore pleaded himself always ours was, in few words, and home to the point: and when he was a judge, he held those who pleaded before him to the main hinge of the business, and cut them short when they made excursions about circumstances of no moment, by which he saved much time, and made the chief difficulties be well stated and cleared. There was another custom among the Romans, which he as much admired as he despised their rhetoric, which was, that the jurisconsults were the men of the highest quality, who were bred to be capable of the chief employment in the state, and became the great masters of their law: these gave their opinions of all cases that were put to them freely, judg ing it below them to take any present for it; and indeed they were the only true lawyers among them, whose resolutions were of that authority, that they made one classis of those materials out of which Trebonia compiled the digests under Justinian; for the orators, or causidici, that pleaded causes, knew little of the law, and only employed their mercenary tongues to work on the affections of the peo ple, and senate, or the pretors; even in most of Tully's orations there is little of law, and that little which the might sprinkle in their declamations, they had not from their own knowledge, but the resolution of some jurisconsult: according to that famous story of Servius Sulpicius, who was a celebrated orator, and being to receive the resolution of one of those that were learned in the law, was so ignorant, that he could not understand it; upon which the juris-consult reproached him, and said, "it was a shame for him that was a nobleman, a senator, and a pleader of causes, to be thus ignorant of law;" this 66 66 touched him so sensibly, that he set about the study of it, and became one of the most eminent juris-consults that ever were at Rome. Our judge thought it might become the greatness of a prince to encourage such sort of men, and of studies; in which none in the age he lived was equal to the great Selden, who was truly in our English law, what the old Roman juris-consults were in theirs. But where a decent eloquence was allowable, judge. Hale knew how to have excelled as much as any, either in illustrating his reasonings, by proper and well-pursued similies, or by such tender expressions, as might work most on the affections; so that the present lord chancellor has often said of him since his death, that he was the greatest orator he had known; for though his words came not fluently from him, yet when they were out, they were the most significant and expressive that the matter could bear; of this sort there are many in his contemplations made to quicken his own devotion, which have a life in them becoming him that used them, and a softness fit to melt even the harshest tempers, accommodated to the gravity of the subject, and apt to excite warm thoughts in the readers, that as they shew his excellent temper that brought them out, and applied them to himself, so they are of great use to all who would both inform and quicken their minds. Of his illustrations of things by proper similies, I shall give a large instance out of his book of the origination of mankind, designed to expose the several dif ferent hypotheses the philosophers fell on, concerning the eternity and original of the universe, and to prefer the account given by Moses, to all their conjectures; in which, if my |