life there is well known. As was to be ex- ' pected of the future commentator on Little- | ton, Coke was a "reading man." His day's work has come down to us in the pages of Lloyd. " He rose at five, lighting his own fire, and then read Bracton, Littleton, and the ponderous folio abridgments of the law till the court met at eight o'clock. He then" took boat for Westminster and heard cases argued until twelve o'clock, when the pleas ceased for dinner. After a meal in the Inner Temple Hall he attended Readings in the afternoon, and then resumed his private studies till supper time, at five o'clock, after which he slammed his chamber door and set to work with his commonplace book to index all the law he had amassed during the day, and at nine he retired to rest." We shall not be able to love Coke over much, but we may always admire his hon esty, his industry, and his determination to succeed. And in so doing it is quite pos sible that we shall satisfy Coke himself. In later life he was wont to say that there were three things for which he commended him self : his obtaining so fair a portion with his first wife; his successful study of the laws; the independent way in which he had obtained his successes, nee precio, nec prctio. There were not many ways in which Coke resembled his fellow-students, and the first of these is not one of them. Few men have shown a more rash contempt for prudence than those Templars whose loves are mat ter of history. It is all the more creditable that Miss Bridget Paston brought with her to Mr. Attorney £30,000. Mistress Bridget would doubtless deny the justice of part of the third claim — and she would probably be right. She would maintain that she was properly coy and backward in consenting; we should submit that it is not often that £30,000 may be had without the asking. However excellent these achievements were, it must be confessed that they tend to make the story of Coke's student days monoton ous. He had no time to see the town, he
never entered a play-house (and thanked God for it), and was in all things a business like and unimaginative person. One ugly jest is recorded of him in Manningham's Diary — a book of which we shall say something later: "Booth being indited of felony for forgery, desyred a day to answere till Easter terme. ' Oh! ' said Mr. Attor ney, 'you would have a Spring; you shall, but in a halter.'" In the same spirit, all through the trial of Raleigh (who had been his fellow-student at the Temple), Coke rained on hirn> epi thets such as 'viper' and 'spider of hell.' ' The extreme weakness of the evidence," says Sir James Stephen in his history of the • criminal law, "was made up for by the rancorous ferocity of Coke, who reviled and insulted Raleigh in a manner never imitated, so far as I know, before or since in any English court of justice." It is a fair boast, and a pleasing one, and comes with author ity. But we confess that "never imitated . . . before or since" ... is a phrase of which, in calmer moments, we should have liked to hear the Judge's reading. In one thing, at least, Coke proved him self a Templar — in his dogged resistance to any attempt to over-ride the Common Law or curtail the rights of Parliament. No man held worse cards or played a better game. No man was more closely watched and came through the ordeal with less tarnish. He fought Bacon, he fought Bancroft, and withstood even majesty itself, even if, ac cording to the histories, he "grovelled" at the royal snub. But while grovelling he still protested the excellence of the Com mon Law and the merits of his own inter pretation. If he lost his dignity, he seldom missed his point. There cannot have been much affection existing between Coke and his Inn. There were no friendships, merry makings or diversions to remember. "The Temple," says one panegyrist, "was often called 'My Lord Coke's Shop'"; and the phrase, ugly as it is, could not be bettered.
