Company

Do good to them. Use God's name reverently. Beware of leaving an ill impression, of ill example. Receive good from them, if more knowing.

EVENING.

Cast up the accounts of the day. If aught amiss, beg pardon. Gather resolution of more vigilance. If well, bless the mercy and grace of God that hath supported thee.

These notes have an imperfection in the wording of them, which shows they were only intended for his privacies. No wonder a man who set such rules to himself became quickly very eminent and remarkable.

Noy,* the attorney-general, being then one of the greatest men of the profession, took early notice of him, and called often for him, and directed him in his study, and grew to have such friendship for him, that he came to be called Young Noy.'

He, passing from the extreme of vanity in his apparel, to that of neglecting himself too much, was once taken, when there was a press for the king's service, as a fit person for it; for he was a strong and well-built man: but, some that knew him, coming by, and giving notice who he was, the press-men let him go. This made him return to more decency in his clothes, but never to any superfluity or vanity in them. †

* Born, 1577. Died, 1634.

Let thy apparell be decent, and suited to the quality of thy place and too much punctualitie, and too much morositie, are the two poles -FR. QUARLES.

Once, as he was buying some cloth for a new suit, the draper, with whom he differed about the price, told him he should have it for nothing, if he would promise him a hundred pounds, when he came to be lord chief justice of England. To which he answered, That he could not, with a good con science, wear any man's cloth, unless he paid for it;' so, he satisfied the draper, and carried away the cloth. Yet, the same draper lived, to see him advanced, to that same dignity.*

While he was thus improving himself in the study of the law, he not only kept the hours of the hall constantly in term-time, but seldom put himself out of commons in vacation-time; and continued, then, to follow his studies, with an unwearied diligence; and, not being satisfied with the books writ about it, or to take things upon trust, was very diligent in searching all records. Then did he make divers collections, out of the books he had read; and, mixing them with his own observations, digested them into a common-place book: which he did with so much industry and judgment, that an eminent judge of the king's bench borrowed it of him, when he was lord chief baron. He unwillingly lent it, because it had been written by him before he was called to the bar, and had never been thoroughly revised by him, since that time; only, what alterations had been made in the law, by subsequent statutes and judgments, were added by him as they had happened: but, the judge, having perused it, said, that, though it was

* A similar story is told of pope Sixtus V., by his amusing, but too often

composed by him so early, he did not think any lawyer in England could do it better, except he himself would again set about it.

He was soon found out, by that great and learned antiquary Mr. Selden ; who, though much superior to him in years, yet came to have such a liking of him, and of Mr. Vaughan, † who was afterwards lord chief justice of the common pleas, that, as he continued in a close friendship with them while he lived, so he left them, at his death, two of his four

executors.

It was this acquaintance that first set Mr. Hale › on a more enlarged pursuit of learning, which he had before confined to his own profession; but, becoming as great a master in it, as ever any was, very soon, he, who could never let any of his time go away unprofitably, found leisure, to attain to as great a variety of knowledge, in as comprehensive a manner, as most men have done in any age.

* John Selden, born, 1584.: died, 1654. Of this great man's attainments, it were superfluous to speak: his life, properly told, would be a complete history of the learning of his time. Lord Clarendon says, that Mr. Selden was a person, whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of such stupendous learning, in all kinds, and in all languages, as may appear from his excellent and transcendent writings, that, a man would have thought, he had been entirely conversant among books, and had never spent an hour, but in reading and writing: yet, his humanity, courtesy, and affability, was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good-nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding.'

Towards the close of life, he began to see the emptiness of mere human learning: and owned, that, out of the numberless volumes which he had read and digested, nothing stuck so close to his heart, or gave him such solid satisfaction, as a single passage out of St. Paul's epistle to Titus, .. chap. ii. 11-14.

+ Sir John Vaughan: very learned in the law, and well versed in the r parts of learning. But his chief recommendation to the good opisterity, unquestionably was, that he enjoyed the friendship of two as Hale and Selden. He was born A. D. 1608., died A. D. 1674.

He set himself much to the study of the Roman law; and, though he liked the way of judicature in England by juries, much better than that of the civil law, where so much was trusted to the judge,.. yet, he often said, that the true grounds and reasons of law were so well delivered in the digests, that a man could never understand law, as a science, so well as by seeking it there; and, therefore lamented much, that it was so little studied in England.

He looked on readiness in arithmetic, as a thing which might be useful to him in his own employment; and acquired it, to such a degree, that he would often, on a sudden, and afterwards on the bench, resolve very hard questions, which had puzzled the best accountants about town. He rested not here: but studied the algebra, both speciosa and numerosa; and went through all the other mathematical sciences, and made a great collection of very excellent instruments, sparing no cost to have them as exact as art could make them. He was, also, very conversant in philosophical learning, and in all the curious experiments, and rare discoveries, of this age: and had the new books, written on those subjects, sent him from all parts; which he both read, and examined, so critically, that, if the principles and hypotheses, which he took first up, did any way prepossess him, yet, those who have differed most from him, have acknowledged, that, in what he has writ concerning the Torricellian experiment, and of the rarefaction and condensation of the air, he shows as great an exactness, and as much subtlety in the reasoning he

adhered, could bear. But, indeed, it will seem scarcely credible, that a man so much employed, and of so severe a temper of mind, could find leisure to read, observe, and write, so much of these subjects, as he did. He called them his diversions; for he often said, when he was weary with the study of the law, or divinity, he used to recreate himself with philosophy, or the mathematics. To these he added great skill in physic, anatomy, and chirurgery. And he used to say, no man could be absolutely a master in any profession, without having some skill in other sciences; for, besides the satisfaction he had in the knowledge of these things," he made use of them often in his employments. In" some examinations, he would put such questions to physicians or chirurgeons, that they have professed the college of physicians could not do it more exactly; by which he discovered great judgment, as well as much knowledge, in these things. And, in his sickness, he used to argue with his doctors about his distempers, and the methods they took with them, like one of their own profession; which one of them told me he understood, as far as speculation, without practice, could carry him.

To this he added great searches into ancient history; and particularly, into the roughest, and least delightful part of it, chronology. He was well acquainted with the ancient greek philosophers; but want of occasion to use it, wore out his knowledge of the greek tongue: and, though he never studied the hebrew tongue, yet, by his great conversation with Selden, he understood the most curious things in the rabbinical learning.

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