The Lives of the Chief Justices of England

HE unprincipled, ignorant, and incompetent Chief Justices of the King's Bench, who have been exciting alternately the indignation and the disgust of the reader, were succeeded by a man of unsullied honor, of profound learning, and of the most enlightened understanding, who held the office for twenty-two years,during the whole of which long period-often in circumstances of difficulty and embarrassment-he gave an example of every excellence which can be found in a perfect magistrate. To the happy choice of SIR JOHN HOLT as president in the principal common law court, and to his eminent judicial services, we may in no small degree ascribe the stability of the constitutional system intro duced when hereditary right was disregarded, and the dynasty was changed. During the reigns of William and of Anne, factions were several times almost equally bal. anced, and many of the enormities of the banished race were forgotten; but when men saw the impartiality and mildness with which, in the discharge of his duty, he alternately defied the power of either House of Parliament, they dreaded a counter-revolution, by which he would have been removed to make place for a Jeffrey, a Scroggs, or a Wright.

Of all the Judges in our annals, Holt has gained the highest reputation, merely by the exercise of judicial

functions. He was not a statesman like Clarendon, he was not a philosopher like Bacon, he was not an orator like Mansfield; yet he fills nearly as great a space in the eye of posterity; and some enthusiastic lovers of jurisprudence regard him with higher veneration than any English Judge who preceded or has followed him.

It would have been most interesting and instructive to trace the formation of such a character; but, unfortunately, little that is authentic is known of Holt till he appeared in public life; and for his early career we are obliged to resort to vague and improbable traditions.

He was of a respectable gentleman's family, seated in the county of Oxford.' His father tried, rather unsuccessfully, to eke out the income arising from a small patrimonial estate, by following the profession of the law, and rose to be a bencher of Gray's Inn. In 1677 he became a Sergeant, but was known by mixing in factious intrigues rather than by pleading causes in Westminster Hall. Of the party who were first called "Tories" he was one of the founders. Taking the Court side with much zeal, he was rewarded with knighthood, and became "Sir Thomas." Of course he was an abhorrer," inveighing against the "Petitioners" as little better than traitors in consequence of which he was taken into custody by order of the House of Commons. His celebrated son had strongly taken the other side in politics-but was no doubt shocked at this stretch of authority, and may then have imbibed the dislike which he afterwards evinced of the abuse of parliamentary privilege. The old gentleman soon after died, and if he had been childless his name never more would have been heard of.

But on the 30th of December, 1642, there had been born to him at Thame, in Oxfordshire, a son, the subject

I have taken the following account of Ch. J. Holt's family, and the dates of the different events in his early career, from a Life of him published in the year 1763, with the motto from his epitaph—

"Libertatis, ac Legum Anglicarum
Assertor, Vindex, Custos,

Vigilis, Acer, et Intrepidus."

This, as a biography, is exceedingly meagre, but it seems very accurate, and it cites authorities, most of which I have investigated, but which I do not think it worth while to parade. See likewise an able Life of Holt in Welsby's "Eminent English Judges," which has been of considerable service to me in preparing this memoir.

of this memoir, whom he lived to see rising into great eminence, and of whom he was justly proud although he deplored his political degeneracy when he found him to be a Whig.

All that we certainly know of young John's boyish education is that he was seven or eight years in the Free School of the town of Abington, of which his father was Recorder. It is said, that during the whole of this time he was remarkable for being idle and mischievous-a statement which I entirely disbelieve. "The boy is the father of the man," and though there may be a supervening habit of dissipation-which may be conquered-the devoted application to business, the unwearied perseverance, and the uniform self-control which characterized Sir John Holt, could only have been the result of a submission to strict discipline in early youth.

In his sixteenth year he was transferred to the University of Oxford, and entered a fellow commoner of Oriel College. Here he was guilty of great irregularities, although they have been probably much exaggerated, and might arise from his having been previously kept under excessive restraint. His biographers represent him as copying Henry V. when the associate of Falstaff, and not only indulging in all sorts of licentious gratifications, but actually being in the habit of taking purses on the highway. They even relate that many years after, when he was going the circuit as Chief Justice, he recognized a man, convicted capitally before him, as one of his own accomplices in a robbery, and that, having visited him in jail and inquired after the rest of the gang, he received this answer, Ah! my Lord, they are all hanged but myself and your Lordship?” 1

1 Hanging was not formerly considered so very disgraceful and melan. choly an occurrence as it is now. When I first came to London I frequented the famous CIDER CELLAR in Maiden-Lane, where I met Professor Porson, Matthew Raine, the Master of the Charter-House, and other men of celebrity. Among these was George Nichol, the King's bookseller, who, in answer to some reflections on the society which sometimes came there, answered, with an air of conscious dignity, "I have known the Cider Cellar these forty years, and during that time only two men have been hung out of it." At this time the Cellar was repaired, and Porson suggested for it the motto which it still bears

"HONOS ERIT HUIC QUOQUE POMO."

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The Lives of the Chief Justices of England, Nide 3