from any Recusant beyond proportion, it be not conceived there is some secret dispensation or toleration.

14. That howsoever no manner of compulsory means is to be used, nor no show thereof, yet if any malicious person shall deride or scorn or slander the frank disposition of the King's subjects, or purposely dissuade it or seek to defeat it or divert it, that be questioned and severely punished.

15. That in the conclusion there be a Proclamation of thanks; as well to comfort the King's loving subjects, as to publish and sound abroad their affection unto all parts.

I take this paper to afford good evidence that if any of these letters were sent in the name of the King, or from the body of the Council, or from the Lieutenants, it was not the fault of Bacon. Not being himself a member of the Council, he could not control their resolutions; and it appears that in some things they took a course contrary to this advice. There is reason to believe that their first design was to make the collection by Commission under the Great Seal, which was objected to by Coke (now a Privy Councillor) not only as impolitic (in which Bacon would have agreed with him) but as illegal-in which he differed: and though Coke retracted that opinion afterwards, it prevailed at the time, and prevented the adoption of that course. The course chosen, however, was scarcely more in accordance with Bacon's suggestions for the motion was made by letters from the Council to the Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, and Mayors. And here we may leave the business for the present, as we shall have to return to it afterwards.

2.

Of Bacon's employments during the remainder of this year I find but few traces.

The kind of business which occupied much of his time may be partly inferred from a letter to Sir Thomas Lake, which happens to have been preserved; relating to the legal form of a grant of certain lands forfeited to the Crown through the attainder of Rookewood, one of the persons engaged in the Gunpowder Plot. But it appears to have been merely a piece of ordinary lawyer's work, into the particulars of which it is not worth while to inquire further.

1 See several of them printed from the Council Register by Gardiner, vol. ii. p. 396.

TO SIR THOMAS LAKE.1

Sir Thomas Lake. The warrant you sent me for the drawing of my Lord Walden's grant from his Majesty, the word concealed in the warrant doth hinder the force of the patent, for that the said lands were once in charge, although they were afterwards discharged by plea and judgment thereupon against his Majesty. So that his Majesty was answered no profit or revenew for the same. You must be pleased to send me a warrant more general, viz. of all the lands of the said Rookewood which by the industry of the said Lord Walden are found since Easter Term last by Inquisition to be forfeited to his Majesty by the attainder of the said Rookewood: otherwise I cannot draw any grant effectual. Your H's loving friend

xith of July 1614.

to command

FR. BACON.

3.

The next paper has no date, nor am I aware that any of the facts or persons referred to in it will enable us to fix it nearer than this —that it was drawn up after the dissolution of the Parliament of 1614, and not very long after. But I take it that the long vacation of that year is the date most probable. For the subject was one which Bacon seldom failed to press upon the attention of the Government when he found or could make an opportunity; the present opportunity was best if taken at once: and he did not often let a long vacation pass without preparing some suggestive memorial for the King. He returned to the subject again about two years later in a more detailed and elaborate proposition, which will appear in its place and form the best comment upon this: concerning which it is enough to say here that the suggestion was adopted and acted upon, and some way made, though we do not know exactly what was

done.

A MEMORIAL TOUCHING THE REVIEW OF PENAL LAWS AND THE AMENDMENT OF THE COMMON LAW.2

1

Forasmuch as it was one of His Majesty's Bills of Grace, that

1 S. P. Dom. James I., vol. lxxvii. no. 61. Original: the subscription in Bacon's own hand.

2 Cott. MSS. Tit. F. iv. 11. Copy in a contemporary hand, without date or name. Docketed in another, "Bacon touching the amendment of Laws."

there should be certain Commissioners, 12 Lawyers and 12 Gentlemen of experience in the Country, for the review of penal laws and the repeal of such as are obsolete and snaring, and the supply where it shall be needful of laws more mild and fit for the time, etc.1 and thereupon to prepare bills for the next Parliament: It were now a time for his Majesty out of his royal authority and goodness to act this excellent intent, and to grant forth a Commission accordingly, wherein besides the excellency of the work in itself, and the pursuing of the intent of that Bill of Grace, two things will follow for his Majesty's honour and reputation.

The one that it will beat down the opinion which is sometime muttered, That his Majesty will call no more Parliaments.

The other that whereas there are some rumours dispersed that now his Majesty for the help of his wants will work upon the penal laws, the people shall see his disposition is

so far from that, as he is in hand to abolish many of them. There is a second work which needeth no Parliament, and is one of the rarest works of sovereign merit which can fall under the acts of a King. For Kings that do reform the body of their Laws are not only Reges but Legis-latores, and as they have been well called perpetui Principes, because they reign in their Laws for ever.

Wherefore, for the Common Law of England, it appeareth it is no Text law, but the substance of it consisteth in the series and succession of Judicial Acts from time to time which have been set down in the books which we term Year Books or Reports, so that as these Reports are more or less perfect, so the Law itself is more or less certain, and indeed better or worse. Whereupon a conclusion may be made, that it is hardly possible to confer upon this kingdom a greater benefit than if his Majesty should be pleased that these books also may be purged and reviewed, whereby they may be reduced to fewer volumes and clearer resolutions: which may be done,

By taking away many cases obsolete and of no use, keeping a remembrance of some few of them for antiquity

sake.

1 Brought in by Bacon on the 2nd of May 1614. See Book V. Chap. II. § 4.

By taking away many cases that are merely but iterations, wherein a few set down will serve for many.

By taking away idle Queries, which serve but for seeds of incertainty.

By abridging and dilucidating cases tediously or darkly reported.

By purging away cases erroneously reported and differing from the original verity of the Record.

Whereby the Common Law of England will be reduced to a corse or digest of Books of competent volumes to be studied, and of a nature and content rectified in all points.

Thus much for the time past.

But to give perfection to this work his Majesty may be pleased to restore the ancient use of Reporters, which in former times were persons of great learning, which did attend the Courts at Westminster, and did carefully and faithfully receive the Rules and Judicial Resolutions given in the King's Courts, and had stipends of the Crown for the same; which worthy institution by neglect of time hath been discontinued.

It is true that this hath been supplied somewhat of later times by the industry of voluntaries, as chiefly by the worthy endeavours of the Lord Dier and the Lord Coke. But great Judges are unfit persons to be reporters, for they have either too little leisure or too much authority, as may appear well by those two books, whereof that of my Lord Dier is but a kind of note book, and those of my Lord Cokes hold too much de proprio.

The choice of the persons in this work will give much life unto it. The persons following may be thought on, as men not overwrought with practice, and yet learned and diligent, and conversant in Reports and Records. There are six names whereof three only may suffice according to the three principal Courts of Law, the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer. Mr Whitlock.

Mr Noie.

Mr Hackwell

Mr Courtman

Which

The stipend cannot be less than 100l. per annum. nevertheless were too little to men of such quality, in respect of some hindrance it may be to their practice, were it not that it will be accompanied with credit and expectation in due time of preferment.

4.

Another fragment of Bacon's labours, though a piece of professional business (from which we must always beware of inferring too much as to a man's personal feelings and opinions), derives an interest from the manner of treatment, and as showing what he had to say upon a subject which (so far as I remember) he has not touched upon anywhere else. He does not appear to have been at any time of his life a sportsman. We never hear of him at a hunting or hawking party, and though there were fish-ponds at Gorhambury, it is not known that he ever tried to catch a fish. In his Essays he has touched upon most things that "come home to men's business and bosoms," not excluding their less important amusements and recreations, but I do not think he has said anything in behalf of fieldsports, which formed so large a part of the business of the King and Court. His official duty, however, would occasionally bring him into contact with the question. On the 25th of April 1614, shortly after Parliament had adjourned for the Easter recess, he was instructed by the Council to inquire into a case of fence-breaking and poaching in the forest of Windsor, and, if he thought fit, to proceed against the offenders in the Star Chamber, the next term. And in a manuscript volume in the Harleian collection, where some lawyer, or some one otherwise connected with the Courts of law, appears to have entered notable things from time to time, I find under the date 23 October notes of a speech made in the Star Chamber upon a case of deer-stealing in the forest of Gillingham, by "Mr. Attorney." No one will doubt that "Mr. Attorney" must have been Bacon : and though the year-date is doubtful, nothing of importance depends upon it. Whenever it may have been that he was called on to prosecute a deer-stealer, it is equally interesting to know what he had to say about the offence and how he dealt with it: and Michaelmas term 1614 being as likely a date as any, it has as good a right to come in here as anywhere else.

IN CAMERA STELLATA XXIII° OCTOBRIS.-NOTES OF MR. ATTORNEY'S [SPEECH] CONCERNING DEER-STEALING.2

May it please your Lordships

There is brought before you this day three several offences. The first is the King's case, followed as it seems by the appoint

1 Register of Council Office.

2 Harl. MSS. 1576, f. 74.