cestors. He did not much approve of burying in churches, and used to fay, The churches were for "the living, and the church-yards for the dead.' His monument was, like himself, decent and plain, the tomb-ftone was black marble, and the fides were black and white marble; upon which he himself had ordered this bare and humble inscription to be made: HIC INHUMATUR CORPUS DENATI VERO IBIDEM VICESIMO QUINTO DIE DECEMBRIS, HAVING thus given an account of the most remarkable things of his Life, I am now to prefent his reader with fuch a Character of him, as the laying his feveral virtues together will amount to: in which I know how difficult a tafk I undertake; for to write defectively of him, were to injure him, and leffen the memory of one to whom I intend to do all the right that is in my power. On the other hand, there is fo much here to be commended, and proposed for the imitation of others, that I am afraid fome may imagine I am rather making a picture of him, from an abstracted idea of great virtues and perfections, than fetting him out as he truly was: but there is great encouragement in this, that I write concerning a man fo Here is buried the body of Matthew Hale, knight, the only son of Robert Hale, and Joanna his wife; born in this parish of Alderly, on the 1st day of November, in the year of our Lord 1609; and died in the same place on the 26th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1676; in the 67th year of his age. fresh frefh in all peoples remembrance, that is fo lately dead, and was fo much and fo well known, that I fhall have many vouchers, who will be ready to justify me in all that I am to relate, and to add a great deal to what I can fay. It has appeared in the account of his various learning, how great his capacities were, and how much they were improved by conftant ftudy. He rofe always early in the morning; he loved to walk much abroad, not only for his health, but he thought it opened his mind and enlarged his thoughts to have the creation of God before his eyes. When he fet himself to any study, he used to caft his design into a scheme, which he did with a great exactness of method; he took nothing on trust, but pursued his enquiries as far as they could go; and as he was humble enough to confefs his ignorance, and fubmit to myfteries which he could not comprehend, fo he was not eafily imposed on by any fhews of reason, or the bugbears of vulgar opinions: He brought all his knowledge as much to fcientifical principles as he poffibly could, which made him neglect the study of tongues, for the bent of his mind lay another way. Difcourfing once of this to fome, they faid, 'They looked on the Common Law 'as a ftudy that could not be brought into a fcheme, nor formed into a rational science, by reason of the indigestedness of it, and the multiplicity of the cafes ' in it, which rendered it very hard to be understood, 'or reduced into a method; but he faid 'He was 'not of their mind;' and fo quickly after he drew with his own hand a fcheme of the whole order and parts of it, in a large fheet of paper, to the great fatisfaction of thofe to whom he fent it. Upon this hint, fome preffed him to compile a body of the Eng. lish Law. It could hardly ever be done by a man who knew it better, and would with more judgment and industry have put it into method. But he faid, As it was a great and noble defign, which would be of valt 'advantage to the nation, fo it was too much for a E 2 'private private man to undertake: it was not to be entered upon but by the command of a Prince, and with the communicated endeavours of fome of the moft eminent of the profeffion.' He had great vivacity in his fancy, as may appear by his inclination to Poetry, and the lively illuftrations and many tender strains in his Contemplations; but he looked on eloquence and wit as things to be used very chastely in ferious matters, which fhould come under a feverer inquiry: Therefore he was both, when at the bar and on the bench, a great enemy to all eloquence or rhetoric in pleading: He faid, "If the judge, or jury, had a right understanding, it fignified nothing, but a waste of time, and lofs of words; and if they were weak, and easily wrought on, it was a more decent way of corrupting them, ⚫ by bribing their fancies and biasing their affections;" and wondered much at that affectation of the French lawyers, in imitating the Roman orators in their pleadings for the oratory of the Romans was occafioned by their popular government, and the factions of the city: fo that thofe who intended to excell in the pleading of caufes, were trained up in the schools of the rhetors, till they became ready and expert in that lufcious way of difcourfe. It is true, the compofures of fuch a man as Tully was, who mixed an extraordinary quickness, an exact judgment, and a juft de. corum with his fkill in rhetoric, do ftill entertain the readers of them with great pleasure; but at the fame time, it must be acknowledged, that there is not that chastity of style, that clofenefs of reafoning, nor that juftnefs of figures in his Orations, that is in his other writings; fo that a great deal was faid by him, rather because he knew it would be acceptable to his auditors, than that it was approved of by himself; and all who read them will acknowledge, they are better pleafed with them as eflays of wit and ftyle, than as pleadings, by which fuch a judge as ours was, would not be much wrought on. And if there are fuch grounds grounds to cenfure the performances of the greatest master in eloquence, we may eafily infer what naufeous difcourfes the other orators made; fince in oratory as well as in poetry, none can do indifferently. So our judge wondered to find the French, that live under a Monarchy, fo fond of imitating that which was an ill effect of the popular government of Rome: He therefore pleaded himself always in few words, and home to the point: and when he was a judge, he held those who pleaded before him to the main hinge of the business, and cut them fhort when they made excurfions about circumftances of no moment, by which he faved much time, and made the chief diffi culties be well ftated and cleared. There was another custom among the Romans, which he as much admired as he despised their rhetoric, which was, that the juris-confults were the men of the highest quality, who were bred to be capable of the chief employment in the ftate, and became the great masters of their law. These gave their opinions of all cafes that were put to them freely, judging it below them to take any prefent for it; and indeed they were the only true lawyers among them, whofe re, folutions were of that authority that they made one claffis of those materials, out of which Trebonian compiled the digefts under Juftinian; for the orators, or caufidici, that pleaded causes, knew little of the law, and only employed their mercenary tongues to work on the affections of the people and fenate, or the pretors: even in most of Tully's Orations there is little of law; and that little which they might fprinkle in their declamations, they had not from their own knowledge, but the refolution of fome juris-confult. According to that famous ftory of Servius Sulpitius, who was a celebrated orator; and being to receive the refolution of one of those that were learned in the law, was fo ignorant, that he could not understand it; upon which the juris-confult reproached him, and faid, It was a fhame for him that was a Nobleman, a Se# 3 nator, nator, and a Pleader of Causes, to be thus ignorant ' of Law.' This touched him to fenfibly, that he fet about the study of it, and became one of the most eminent juris-confults that ever were at Rome. Our judge thought it might become the greatness of a prince, to encourage fuch fort of men, and of ftudies; in which none in the age he lived in was equal to the great Selden, who was truly in our English law, what the old Roman juris-confults were in theirs. But where a decent eloquence was allowable, Judge Hale knew how to have excelled as much as any, either in illuftrating his reafonings by proper and well purfued fimilies, or by fuch tender expreffions as might work moft on the affections; fo that the prefent lord chancellor has often faid of him, fince his death, That he was the greateft orator he had known;' for though his words came not fluently from him, yet when they were out, they were the moft fignificant and expreffive that the matter could bear. Of this fort there are many in his Contemplations made to quicken his own devotion, which have a life in them becoming him that ufed them, and a foftness fit to melt even the harshest tempers, accommodated to the gravity of the fubject, and apt to excite warm thoughts in the readers; that as they fhew his excellent temper that brought them out, and applied them to himfelf; fo they are of great ufe to all who would both inform and quicken their minds. Of his illuftrations of things by proper fimilies, I fhall give a large inftance out of his book of the Origination of Mankind, designed to expose the feveral different hypothefes the Philofophers fell on concerning the eternity and original of the universe, and to prefer the account given by Mofes to all their conjectures; in which, if my tafte does not mifguide me, the reader will find a rare and very agreeable mixture both of fine wit and folid learning and judgment. • That |