登陆注册
5406800000219

第219章 FRANCIS BACON(19)

Three judges of the Court of King's Bench were tractable.But Coke was made of different stuff.Pedant, bigot, and brute as he was, he had qualities which bore a strong, though a very disagreeable resemblance to some of the highest virtues which a public man can possess.He was an exception to a maxim which we believe to be generally true, that those who trample on the helpless are disposed to cringe to the powerful.He behaved with gross rudeness to his juniors at the bar, and with execrable cruelty to prisoners on trial for their lives.But he stood up manfully against the King and the King's favourites.No man of that age appeared to so little advantage when he was opposed to an inferior, and was in the wrong.But, on the other hand, it is but fair to admit that no man of that age made so creditable a figure when he was opposed to a superior, and happened to be in the right.On such occasions, his half-suppressed insolence and his impracticable obstinacy had a respectable and interesting appearance, when compared with the abject servility of the bar and of the bench.On the present occasion he was stubborn and surly.He declared that it was a new and highly improper practice in the judges to confer with a law-officer of the Crown about capital cases which they were afterwards to try; and for some time he resolutely kept aloof.But Bacon was equally artful and persevering."I am not wholly out of hope," said he in a letter to the King, "that my Lord Coke himself, when I have in some dark manner put him in doubt that he shall be left alone, will not be singular." After some time Bacon's dexterity was successful; and Coke, sullenly and reluctantly, followed the example of his brethren.But in order to convict Peacham it was necessary to find facts as well as law.Accordingly, this wretched old man was put to the rack, and, while undergoing the horrible infliction, was examined by Bacon, but in vain.No confession could be wrung out of him; and Bacon wrote to the King, complaining that Peacham had a dumb devil.At length the trial came on.A conviction was obtained; but the charges were so obviously futile, that the Government could not, for very shame, carry the sentence into execution; and Peacham, was suffered to languish away the short remainder of his life in a prison.

All this frightful story Mr.Montagu relates fairly.He neither conceals nor distorts any material fact.But he can see nothing deserving of condemnation in Bacon's conduct.He tells us most truly that we ought not to try the men of one age by the standard of another; that Sir Matthew Hale is not to be pronounced a bad man because he left a woman to be executed for witchcraft; that posterity will not be justified in censuring judges of our time, for selling offices in their courts, according to the established practice, bad as that practice was; and that Bacon is entitled to similar indulgence."To persecute the lover of truth," says Mr.

Montagu, "for opposing established customs, and to censure him in after ages for not having been more strenuous in opposition, are errors which will never cease until the pleasure of self-elevation from the depression of superiority is no more."We have no dispute with Mr.Montagu about the general proposition.We assent to every word of it.But does it apply to the present case? Is it true that in the time of James the First it was the established practice for the law-officers of the Crown to hold private consultations with the judges, touching capital cases which those judges were afterwards to try? Certainly not.

In the very page in which Mr.Montagu asserts that "the influencing a judge out of court seems at that period scarcely to have been considered as improper," he give the very words of Sir Edward Coke on the subject."I will not thus declare what may be my judgment by these auricular confessions of new and pernicious tendency, and not according to the customs of the realm." Is it possible to imagine that Coke, who had himself been Attorney-General during thirteen years, who had conducted a far greater number of important State prosecutions than any other lawyer named in English history, and who had passed with scarcely any interval from the Attorney-Generalship to the first seat in the first criminal court in the realm, could have been startled at an invitation to confer with the Crown-lawyers, and could have pronounced the practice new, if it had really been an established usage? We well know that, where property only was at stake, it was then a common, though a most culpable practice, in the judges, to listen to private solicitation.But the practice of tampering with judges in order to procure capita; convictions we believe to have been new, first, because Coke, who understood those matters better than any man of his time, asserted it to be new; and secondly, because neither Bacon nor Mr.Montagu has shown a single precedent.

How then stands the case? Even thus: Bacon was not conforming to an usage then generally admitted to be proper.He was not even the last lingering adherent of an old abuse.It would have been sufficiently disgraceful to such a man to be in this last situation.Yet this last situation would have been honourable compared with that in which he stood.He was guilty of attempting to introduce into the courts of law an odious abuse for which no precedent could be found.Intellectually, he was better fitted than any man that England has ever produced for the work of improving her institutions.But, unhappily, we see that he did not scruple to exert his great powers for the purpose of introducing into those institutions new corruptions of the foulest kind.

同类推荐
  • 禅法要解

    禅法要解

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 女范编

    女范编

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 书博鸡者事

    书博鸡者事

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 张庄僖文集

    张庄僖文集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 山海经校注

    山海经校注

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 快穿系统在线躺赢

    快穿系统在线躺赢

    注:无CP“凭什么女配都这么惨,这不科学!”看着页面上的‘全书完’三个字。明妩表示槽点太多,她不知道从哪里开始吐……好想把那些智障叉出来揍一顿2333系统愉快的表示【我们虽然不能将人叉出来,但我们能进去啊~】——系统激动音【老大老大!男女主要亲了!要亲了!】明妩眼都没抬,食指微勾。霎时,银紫色的闪电横空劈下,什么暧昧因子全都消失的干干净净。系统目瞪口呆:“老大你究竟是什么人?!为什么我一点异样都没检测到?”瑟瑟发抖.jpg明妩面无表情,要是一个破系统都能检测到她的身份,那她也不用混了。自此,明·暴力·妩,开启了虐渣,虐花的人生。
  • 诡局

    诡局

    我和我哥哥是双胞胎,但我们两个长得一点也不像。我长得像我爹,我哥哥却长得像我爷爷。村里人风言风语,一天我爹把我哥哥带出去,回来却只带了一把沾血的斧头。
  • 我的朋友都很灵

    我的朋友都很灵

    我叫刘朝阳,随着一位红衣不速之客的到来,我的生活甚至人生都发生了巨大的改变,随着新世界的大门被打开,原来世界并不是我所看到的那样。随着一个个谜团出现在我眼前,到底还有多少我不知道的真相,而并不擅长解决问题的我,又怎么面对未来、现在、和从前!
  • 误惹豪门:秦少的歌星娇妻

    误惹豪门:秦少的歌星娇妻

    她是当红歌星,却不小心开车撞到了湘城名门世家的千金大小姐;他深爱他的妹妹,不愿放过这个让自己妹妹半身不遂的歌星;他设计和她签下协议,她成为了秦家的仆人,从此便上了秦灏天的贼船;“秦灏天,你给我滚下去。”池烟一脚将秦灏天踢下床。他眸色深沉,眉头紧蹙,拍了拍身上的细灰,淡漠说道:“你就是这样对你的救命恩人的吗?”池烟冷笑:“呵,你确定你不是在害我,而是在救我?”秦灏天莞尔一笑,扯动嘴角浮起一抹邪笑,炙热的吻霸道的落在她的薄唇……--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 小子,我喜欢你

    小子,我喜欢你

    她遇见他注定倒霉,他注定是她命中的恶魔,第一次见面就撞飞了她心爱的花儿,第二次见面他就亲吻了她的脸颊,第三次见面他们竟然同居了,这下可好,两个冤家住在同一屋檐下,他以捉弄她为乐,她却以报复他为目标,世界大战就是这么爆发滴……但是,此时的他们不知道自己的心已经开始萌动。然而这一切随着神秘人的出现打破了……
  • 星空下跳舞的女人

    星空下跳舞的女人

    《星空下跳舞的女人/当代中国实力派女作家书系》由滕肖澜著,系当代中国实力派女作家书系中的一本,由中国作协创研部主任梁鸿鹰主编。《星空下跳舞的女人/当代中国实力派女作家书系》选录了当代知名女家滕肖澜在国内著名文学期刊上发表过的中篇小说5篇,其中包括全国获奖的小说。滕肖澜小说的成功之处是真正的写实,不是用“生活”去填充已被预设了的俗套化想象。她善于平视现实,以平常心和平等的视角去看待现实中的人和事。她写小市民,但又毫无小市民气,小说里自有一番超凡脱俗的情致。
  • 世上没有好老板

    世上没有好老板

    你是否感觉老板对你实时监控,处处刁难,甚至出言不逊,诋毁人格?你是否不堪忍受老板的“无情压迫”,有扔东西、砸电脑,乃至对其大打出手的念头?你是否频频跳槽想逃离苦海,却总是刚出虎穴又入狼窝?你日日祈求上苍赐予一位好老板,但惨淡的现实让人醍醐灌顶:好老板如恐龙,早已销声匿迹,hold住职场,就要知道如何应对坏老板。本书既赐予你与坏老板斗争的勇气,更提供了与坏老板过招的方式方法,将其变“坏”为“宝”。老板有多坏,你就有多棒。感谢那些折磨过你的老板吧,是他们让你的内心更强大,本领更高强!
  • 读者文摘精华:没有人天生身价不菲(原创版)

    读者文摘精华:没有人天生身价不菲(原创版)

    人的一生就是一个追求幸福、追求成功的过程。没有人天生身价不菲,都是在这个过程中实现理想,达到人生的目标的。最终是否成功不重要,重要的是,在不断地追求中享受了这个过程,享受这个过程,其实就是最大的幸福。这是一本哲理散文集,收了作者创作20余年的100多篇经典作品,作者试图通过以小见大的视角,来让人懂得这么个道理。那就是那些有追求的人,一直走在路上的人,幸福,同时也有价值。
  • 中层革命:如何成为最优秀的中层领导

    中层革命:如何成为最优秀的中层领导

    本书详尽为你讲述了如何将自己打造成一个完美的中层管理者,让自己真正成为企业的桥梁纽带作用,也让自己成为企业不可或缺的人才。无论是渴望突破的中层领导,还是期待中层领导提升的高层领导,甚至是希望被提拔的基层员工,都会在本书中找到自己所需要的智慧。
  • 文房四谱

    文房四谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。