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
  • The Georgics

    The Georgics

    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。
  • 灯指因缘经

    灯指因缘经

    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。
  • 慧觉衣禅师语录

    慧觉衣禅师语录

    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。
  • 噶玛阑志略

    噶玛阑志略

    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。
  • 杂譬喻经卷

    杂譬喻经卷

    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
  • 关键时刻,刘邦是这么干的

    关键时刻,刘邦是这么干的

    本书古为今用,通过生动有趣的故事,精辟而独到的分析,在还原楚汉战争的同时,告诉现代每一位领导者和有志成为领袖式人物的读者——领导者自己未必是能者、智者、贤者,却必须是个强而有力的管理者。
  • 一夜之后

    一夜之后

    这是诗人赵晓梦的一部个人诗集,收录了他近两年来创作的诗歌作品一百余首。全书分为六个章节:《行走大地》《季节词典》《秋天之门》《偶然乡愁》《一夜过后》《南方北方》。这些诗作是作者作为一家大型传媒高管繁忙工作之余的产物,是作者对当下生活的叙写和体悟,关于生命、生存状态、时令季节、故土、乡亲,几乎所有的生活元素都成为这部诗集的内核,而这些,并非游离于诗人之外的隔靴搔痒,而是实实在在的自我抵达。作者以独特的意象、丰富的想象和精巧的构思,叙写自己心中的无限诗情,在平淡的生活中理解生死,理解生命,理解活着的意义,让文字充满了对诗意不懈的追求。
  • 凰驭天下

    凰驭天下

    身在皇家的她自小见惯了人情世故,本不想卷入尘世的纷扰,奈何国君无能,奸臣当道,她挥兵长驱惩恶扬善,但面对爱情,却一夜白头,心已死,情已逝,她退政而隐,终得长平称号。--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 娇门影后:恋恋不忘

    娇门影后:恋恋不忘

    云洛是传说中在坦克里出生、在黄金堆里长大的军界公主,可是,却把自己活到了尘埃里。在娱乐圈里顶着骂名与唾弃,云洛一步步地靠近他,只为了说一句:我想睡你!影帝宠溺轻笑:你早就睡了。人人都知,影帝心里有根刺,拔不掉忘不了,但云洛却偏偏是一个喜欢拔刺的英雄,只是拔到最后才发现,这根刺就是她自己。娱乐圈甜宠爽文,一对一宠溺绝对,深情绝对,撩到你腿软~苏到你想哭~欢迎入坑。
  • 狂帝

    狂帝

    这是一个不问前尘,不求来世,只求轰轰烈烈,我命如妖的传奇故事!
  • 标准论概论

    标准论概论

    本书是阐述作者上世纪80年代草创的标准论的。书中指出,标准不可或缺,标准在人们的思维中几乎处处都存在的衡量上起着决定作用;说到了作者已解决了人们一直未解决好的标准是什么问题,从而给出了标准的定义;阐明了可与力学三大定律相比拟的标准论的三个定律:“标准由人确定定律”、“标准决定定律”和“权威统一标准定律”;说到了标准论定律的具体应用;还说到了标准论的方法论方面的事。
  • 网游之阵傲九天

    网游之阵傲九天

    主人公是一枚在现实世界里“一无是处”的游戏控宅男,他好色,花心,还有些小猥琐。忽然有一天,一切都颠覆了,整个世界变成了一场游戏,游戏控宅男竟然以屌丝身份一步步逆袭了各种高富帅富二代,终于站上了世界巅峰……当游戏终了,尘世浮华间,他心中的女神还在身边吗?
  • 绝爱:冷枭的冰心小宠

    绝爱:冷枭的冰心小宠

    她,一名普通的高中生,十八岁生日那天眼睁睁地看着自己的亲哥哥惨死于下水道中……为了查出凶手,弱小无助的她毅然投入S市令人闻风丧胆的XX教父易擎天的怀抱,沦为小宠!三十五岁的他,对女人残忍狠绝,却在年仅十八岁的安琳燕身上找到了心动的感觉……易哲轩,童年时期的一次意外让他对自己的父亲充满了刻骨铭心的仇恨,然而,他却无可救药地爱上了父亲身边最卑微的小宠!为了争夺同一个女人,父子间反目成仇,彻底决裂!弱小的她被父子俩同时爱上,又该何去何从?她那颗飘飘荡荡的心,最终会为谁搁浅?又将为谁心痛?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~XX里的爱情,就像是绽放在危崖边上的血色罂粟,凄美妖娆,然而,一旦采撷,便会摔得粉身碎骨!原来,太爱一个人,最终,也会酿成悲剧……如果,一切可以重来,她宁愿他们从未相爱过!
  • 强吻前妻:离婚烦我,后果自负

    强吻前妻:离婚烦我,后果自负

    当年,她被他们李家撵出家门,她都没说什么,忍了!他急吼吼的跑来算什么帐?!强行绑架她,她不计较。该死的,居然利用她的家人逼她复婚!丝毫不顾她的感受!姓李的,我不招惹你,你偏来招惹我,这日子我跟你没完!!你不是想算账吗?好,咱俩一笔一笔算明白。
  • 王者之旅:爆笑校园

    王者之旅:爆笑校园

    路小小因为玩游戏太痴迷,被父母勒令整个大学期间所有的零花钱没收,同时也将路小小转入到另一所大学,然而令路小小没想到的是,就在开学一个月之后,学校传来了王者荣耀的主办方要在学校里组织一场比赛,而因为这次意外,让路小小那颗平静的内心再次泛起滔天骇浪。而令她没想到的是,因为这次意外,梦想有了,男朋友更是有了!而且还是传说级人物!