heads of the law, with the barristers and students, but the principal nobility and gentry in London, of all shades of political opinion, attended the funeral procession several miles from the metropolis. The admirers of Sacheverell asserted that if Lord Chief Justice Holt's life had been spared, and he had attended the pending trial, he who had boldly withstood either House of Parliament would have lifted up his voice against this iniquitous prosecution, and declared that the champion of the Church had done nothing worthy of death or of bonds; while the Whigs retorted, that a solemn proceeding instituted to vindicate the principles of the Revolution would have been warmly countenanced by him who had resisted the tyranny of James II., who had been a distinguished member of the Convention Parliament, whose arguments had mainly contributed to the vote that the throne was vacant, and who, during his long career, had never swerved from the true principles of civil and religious liberty.'

After reaching Highgate, the hearse was accompanied only by the brother of the deceased and a few private friends till it approached the place of its destination, when it was met by an immense assemblage from the surrounding country. The manor of Redgrave is famous in our judicial annals. It had belonged to Lord Keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon; and here he had entertained Queen Elizabeth-when in answer to her observation that "his house was rather too small for him," he replied, "Your Majesty has made me too great for my house." From the family of the Bacons it had been purchased by Chief Justice Holt, and here he spent his vacations as a private gentleman, mixing familiarly with all ranks, and particularly with the more humble. All the inhabitants of this and the adjoining parishes, as if by one impulse, were now congregated to do honor to him whose face they were to see no more, but whose virtues they were to talk of to their children's children. They cared little about his political conduct, but they had heard, and they

I This seems to have been an anticipation of the contest between Whigs and Tories three years later, when the tragedy of CATO was brought upon the stage. "The Whigs applauded every line in which Liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoed every clap, to show that the satire was unfelt."

believed, that he was the greatest Judge that had appeared on earth since the time of Daniel, and they knew that he was condescending, kind-hearted, and charitable. We are told that as the body was lowered into the grave prepared for it, in the chancel of the church at Redgrave, not a dry eye was to be seen, and the rustic lamentations there uttered eloquently spoke his praise.

There is now to be admired a magnificent monument of white marble, which his brother erected over his grave at a cost of £1,500, representing him in his judicial robes under a canopy of state, seated between emblematical figures of JUSTICE and MERCY, with the forlowing inscription:

" M. S.

Johannis Holt Equitis Aur.
Totius Angliæ in banco regio
Per xxi, annos continuos
Capitalis Justiciarii

Gulielmo Regi, Annæ Reginæ
Consiliarii perpetui,

Libertatis ac legum Anglicarum
Assertoris, Vindicis, Custodis
Vigilis, acris, et intrepidi.
Rolandus frater unicus et hæres
Optime de se merito
Posuit."

This praise is certainly well deserved. I should have been glad if the epitaph could have truly added that he was an elegant scholar, an enlightened philosopher, a splendid orator, or a distinguished writer. Agreeing with Speaker Onslow, that "he was not of very enlarged notions," I would not add, "the better judge, whose business it is to keep strictly to the plain and known rules of law." According to a pithy expression which I have several times heard from the late Daniel O'Connell, "a judge must be a downright tradesman," meaning "the first and indispensable qualification of a judge is that he should thoroughly understand his profession;" and, if he is at all induced to neglect his judicial duties by the allurements of literature and science, or the dangerous ambition of universality, it would be much better that he had taste for nothing more refined than the YEAR-BOOKS. But there is no absolute incompatibility between the

profoundest knowledge of jurisprudence and any degree of culture and accomplishment. We can conceive that Holt, like Somers, might have been President of the Royal Society, and a member of the Kit-Cat Club. But he seems to have been wholly unacquainted with the philosphers and wits who illustrated the reigns of King William and Queen Anne; and Steele, who celebrates him in the TATLER, evidently speaks of VERUS only as an idol whom he had seen and worshiped from a distance. We are left to conjecture as to his habits; but he must have had benchers and sergeants-at-law for his companions, and his talk must have been of "contingent remainders." Yet he is the first man for a "mere lawyer," to be found in our annals. Within his own sphere he shone with unrivaled brightness. Perhaps he was carried too far by his admiration of the common law of England, as when he declared that an appeal of murder sued by the heir of the deceased, to be tried by battle, and excluding the Crown's power of pardon, instead of being an odious prosecution and a remnant of barbarism, was " a noble remedy, and a badge of the rights and privileges of an Englishman." His head, likewise, seems to have been a little turned by the applause he received for his independence, insomuch that he told Mr. Raymond (afterwards Lord Raymond, and his successor) that if the House of Lords had determined against him in a case of Prohibition which was clearly within their jurisdiction, he would not have held himself bound by their judgment;' but, generally speaking, he is to be considered a consummate jurist; above all prejudice; misled by no predilection; seeing what the law ought to be, as well as what it was supposed to be; giving precedent its just weight, and no more; able to adapt established principles to the new exigencies of social life; and making us prefer judge-made law to the crude enactments of the legislature.

He had the merit of effectually repealing the acts against witchcraft, although they nominally continued on the statute book to a succeeding reign. Eleven poor creatures were successively tried before him for this supSarah Stout's Case, 1 Lord Raym. 557; 12 Mod 373 375. I Lord Rayım. 545,

posed crime, and the prosecutions were supported by the accustomed evidence of long fasting, vomiting pins and tenpenny nails, secret teats sucked by imps, devil's marks, and cures by the sign of the cross or drawing blood from the sorceress-which had misled Sir Matthew Hale: but, by Holt's good sense and tact, in every instance the imposture was detected to the satisfaction of the jury, and there was an acquittal. One of the strongest prima facie cases made out before him was said to have been that against the woman to whom, many years before, he himself had pretended to be a wizard, and to whom he had given the cabalistic charm which was adduced as the chief proof of her guilt. At last the Chief Justice effectually accomplished his object by directing that a prosecutor who pretended that he had been bewitched should himself be indicted as an impostor and a cheat. This fellow had sworn that a spell cast upon him had taken away from him the power of swallowing, and that he had fasted for ten weeks; but the manner in which he had secretly received nourishment was clearly proved. He, nevertheless, made a stout defense, and numerous witnesses deposed to his expectoration of pins and his abhorrence of victuals, all which they ascribed to the malignant influence of the witch. The Judge, having extracted from a pretended believer in him the answer that "all the devils in hell could not have helped him to fast so long," and having proved, by cross-examining another witness, that he had a large stock of pins in his pocket, from which those supposed to be vomited. were taken, summed up with great acuteness, and left it to the jury to say, not whether the defendant was bewitched, but whether he was non compos mentis, or was fully aware of the knavery he was committing, and knowingly wished to impose on mankind? The jury found a verdict of guilty, and, the impostor standing in the pillory to the satisfaction of the whole country, no female was ever after in danger of being hanged or burned in England for being old, wrinkled, and paralytic."

Holt's conduct on this occasion will appear the more meritorious if we consider that he ran great risk of being denounced as an athiest; and that, to avoid this peril, 14 St. Tr. 639-695.

1 Ante pp. 4, 5.

preceding Judges, who were not believers in witchcraft, had pandered to the prejudices of the vulgar. Says Roger North," If a Judge is so clear and open as to declare against that impious vulgar opinion that the Devil himself has power to torment and kill innocent children, or that he is pleased to divert himself with the good people's cheese, butter, pigs, and geese, and the like errors of the ignorant and foolish rabble, the countrymen cry, This judge hath no religion, for he doth not believe witches' and so, to show they have some, hang the poor wretches."

1

Holt seems to have had a high reputation among his contemporaries for detecting false pretenses of all sorts, and exposing those who put on an aspect of extraordinary sanctity. There existed in his time a "society for the suppression of vice," composed of men who sought to cover their own bad characters and pernicious habits by affecting to put the law in force against others less culpable than themselves. Said Steele, describing the Chief Justice as VERUS, "He never searched after vice, nor spared it when it came before him; at the same time, he could see through the hypocrisy and disguise of those who have no pretense to virtue themselves but by their severity to the vicious. In his time there was a nest of pretenders to justice who happened to be employed to put things in a method for being examined before him. These animals were to VERUS as monkeys are to men : so like, that you can hardly disown them; but so base, that you are ashamed of their fraternity. It grew a phrase, 'Who would do justice on the justices?' I have seen an old trial where he sat judge on two of them; one was called Trick-track, the other Tear-shift; one was a learned judge of sharpers, the other the quickest of all men at finding out a wench. Trick-track never spared a pick-pocket, but was a companion to cheats. Tear-shift would make compliments to wenches of quality, but certainly commit poor ones. These patriots infested the days of VERUS, while they alternately committed and released each other's prisoners. But VERUS regarded them as criminals, and always looked upon men as they Life of Guilford, i. 151.